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V 






CELEBRATION 



OF THE 
/ 

Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary 



OF 



THE INCORPORATION 



OF 



CONCORD 



Septeoaber 12, 1885 









s. u 







CONCORD MASS.: 
PUBLISHED BY THE TOWN. 



^ 



CELEBRATION 



OF THE 



Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary 



OF 



THE INCORPORATION 



/ °' 



CONCORD 



September 12, 1885. 



l635-l^§g 



CONCORD, MASS.; 

PUBLISHED BY THE TOWN 



X- 



PRINTED AT "THE CONCORD TRANSCRIPT' OFFICE. 



H 



PREFACE. 



For the report of the proceedings, made stenographically, 
the Committee are indebted to Mr, Frank A. Nichols, the edi- 
tor of the Concord Transcript, who devoted an entire number 
of that paper to an account of the celebration. The oration was 
printed in a Supplement, and with the speeches and description, 
occupied thirty columns of the Transcript of Sept. 19th, 1885. 
This work of Mr. Nichols, was, through his kind permission, 
largely used in the preparation of this volume, and without it 
there would have been great difficulty in obtaining a full report 
of the speeches. 



PRINTED AT "THE CONCORD TRANSCRIPT" OFFICE. 






PREFACR. 



For the report of the proceedings, made stenographically, 
the Committee are indebted to Mr. Frank A. Nichols, the edi- 
tor of the Concord Transcript, who devoted an entire number 
of that paper to an account of the celebration. The oration was 
printed in a Supplement, and with the speeches and description, 
occupied thirty columns of the Transcript of Sept. 19th, 1885. 
This work of Mr. Nichols, was, through his kind permission, 
largely used in the preparation of this volume, and without it 
there would have been great difficulty in obtaining a full report 
of the speeches. 



Att the Genall Court holden att Newe Tovm, 
Sejit. 2, 1635. It is ordered that there shalhe a 
plantacon att Maskeleqald ^ & that there shalhe 6 
mi/les of land square to belong to it, & that the in- 
habitants thereof shall have three yeares imunities 
from all publ charges except traineings ; Further 
that when any that plant there shall have occacon 
of carry eing of goods thither, they shall repair e 
to two of the nexte mgistrates where the teames 
are, ivhoe shall have potrer for a yeare to presse 
draughts att reasonable rates, to he jfciyde by the 
owners of the goods, to transjvjrt their goods 
thither att seasonable tymrs ; & the name of the 
place is changed, & hereafter to be called 
CONCORD. 



'^- 



CONCORD, 



At the annual town meeting in 1885, under a proper 
article m the warrant, voted -that fifteen hundred dollars be 
raised and appropriated for the purpose of celebrating the two 
hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the town, and erectiu<T 
tablets or monuments to mark places and objects of historic 
interest," and chose the following persons a committee of ar- 
rangements to carry out the vote and expend the monev above 
granted. 

HeNBY J. HOSMEK, 

Samuel Hoar, Stephen G. Brooks, 

John S. Keyes, 

Grint>ali. Reynolds. john L. Gilmork, 

Richard F. Barrktt, 

George P. How, WT^wrx, c n , 

» HDwiN b. Barrett, 

William Wheeler, 
Alfred B. C. Dakin, Charles E. Brown, 

Edward C. Damon, 
John H. Moore, . William H. Hunt, 

George H. Wright, 
John F. Hosmer, George E. Walcott, 

George Heywood, Jr. 
James B. Wood, George M. Brooks, 

George Heywood, 

Edward W. Emerson, Charles H. Walcott, 

Arthur G. Fuller. 

This committee organized by the choice of Henry J. Hos 
MER Chairman, Richard F. Barrett Secretary, and Charles 
E. Brown Treasurer. It filled the vacancies occasioned by the 
death of George P. How and the resignations of George Hey- 
wood and John H. MooRE/by the choice of Nathan B. Stow 
Humphrey H. Buttrick and Edward J. Bartlett. 



6 CONCORD CELEBRATiOHf. 

The work was divided among sub-committees as follows : 

Tablets : 

Charles H. Walcott, 
Edwakd W. Emerson, Arthur G. Fuller, 

John F. Hosmer, William H. Hunt. 

Proyramme : 

George E. Walcott, 
George M. Brooks, Edwin S. Barrett, 

John L. Gilmore, Samuel Hoar. 

Dinner : 

Stephen G. Brooks, 
George E. Walcott, Nathan B. Stow, 

George H. Wright, George Heywooo, Jr. 

Reception : 

George M. Brooks, 
Grindall Reynolds. Charles H. Walcott, 

Edward W. Emerson, Arthur G. Fuller, 

Oration : 

Grindall Reynolds, 
Henry J. Hosmer, William Wheeler, 

George M. Brooks, William H. Hunt, 

Music : 

John L. Gilmore, 
Humphrey H. Buttrick, Edward J. Bartlett 

Alfred B. C. Dakin, James B. Wood. 

Executive : 

Samuel Hoar, 

Richard F. Barrett, Charles E. Brown, 

Edwin S. Baimiett, Edward C. Damon, 

Henry J. Hosmer, John L. Gilmore. 

The details of tlie arrangements were at many meetings 
duly made, and carefully carried out, 

Hon, George F. Hoar, of Worcester, was selected as the Orator. 
Hon. John S. Keyes, as President of the Day. 
Capt. Richard F. Barrett, as Chief Marshal. 
Rev, Benjamin R. Bulkeley, as Chaplain. 

Hon, Georoe D, Rop.inson, 
Hon. James Russell Lowell, Prof, William W, Goodwin, 
Hon. William M. Evarts, Dr. Samuel A. Green, 

Hon. Romkut C, Winthrop, Mr. Hapgood Wright, 

Hon. Geoiuje William Curtis, Mr. Elijah B. Phillips, 
Pres. Charles W. Eliot, Hon. George Bancroft, 

wore invited as the guests of the Town, each having some es- 
pecial conneelion by birth, residence or relationshi]) with the 
Town. The Selectmen of the Towns of Acton, Bedford, 
Lincoln and Carlisle were also invited as the rei)resentatives 
of their towns that once formed a part of Concord. 



THE EXEBCISES. 7 

The public were notified of the avrangeiiients hy this order 
that was published and circulated throughout the Town. 

CELEBRATION 

OF THE 

250th anniversary 

of the Incorporation 

OF 

CONCORD ! 

September 12, 188^. 



A Salute will Be Fired, and Bells will be Rung 

AT tSuNRISE. 

THE CONCORD ARTILLERY, 

THE OLD CONCORD POST, G. A. R., 

THE CONCORD BATTERY, and 

THE CONCORD FIRE DEPARTMENT, 

will form In Monument Square at 9.30 o'clock, a.m., and wiil march at 10 
o'clock over Lexington, Heywootl, Waklen, Huhbanl, Devcns, Sudbury 
and Thoreau Streets to the head of Main Street, where the invited guests 
will be received at 10.30 o'clock, and escorted down Main Street to the 
Town House. 

The Literary Exercises in the Town Ha.ll 

will begin at 11 o'clock; doors will be open at 10.30 o'clock. j\:fter the 
Exercises at the Hall, the line will be reformed and march ovei- Main, 
Thoreau and Texas Streets tojthe DINNER at Agricultural Hall, which 
will be served at 1.30, o'clock, p. m. at which time the parade will be 
dismissed. 

A Salute will be fired, and the Bells rung at sunset. 

Citizens are invited to Decorate their Houses along the line 
of march. 

RECEPTION AND PROMENADE CONCERT. 

There will be a Reception and Promenade Concert in the Town Hall on 
FRIDAY EVENING, Sept. 11th, from 7.30 to 11 o'clock, to which the citi- 
zens of Concord and their guests are invited. 

RICHARD F. BARRETT, Chief Marshal. 



8 CONCORD CELEBRATION. 

The Reception 

was fixed for Friday evening Sept^ lltli as more desirable than 
the last night of the week. The Town Hall was finely deco- 
rated for the occasion, a large tablet inscribed with the exact 
words of tlie original act of incorporation (as printed on the 
first page of this volume), was placed over the rear of the plat- 
form, and could be read from all parts of the room. The hall 
was well filled with ladies and gentlemen at an early hour, and 
the Salem Cadet Band furnished the music for the concert. 
The reception committee and their wives received those who 
came, including the especial guests of the town most of whom 
were present. These were cordially greeted, made welcolne 
and presented to the citizens of the town, among whom were 
many old friends, relatives, and former neighbois. Many na- 
tive born and former residents attended, and renewed their 
old ties of friendship or kinship with those present. After an 
hour or two of greetings and conversation, dancing began, and 
was kept up with nnuh enjoyment till the close of what proved 
an informal but agreeable and delightful opening of the Cele 
bration. 

Saturday the twelfth day of September was favored with 
the finest weather of the year. It was ushered in by a salute 
fired by the Independent Mounted Battery under the command 
of Capt. a. G. Fullkr, from the Concord cannon inscribed as 
follows : 

*' The Legislature of Massachusetts consecrate the names of Major 
John Buttiuck and Captain Isaac Davis, wliose valor and example 
excited th-^ir fellow citizens to a successful resistance of a superior 
number of Hritish troops at Concord Bridge, the lOtli of Ai)ril, I77"), 
whicli was the beginning of a contest in arms that ended in American 
Independence." 

The seven historic tablets were finished and set in their 
proper places, and the inscriptions on them were printetl on the 
programme of the Exercises at the Town Hall. The morning 
hours were devoted to taking the guests of the town in car- 
riages to see these tablets, each party in charge of a meml)er of 
the Reception Committee. After the drive the guests and the 
committee met at the house of the Clu.irman, Mr. Henry J. 
IIosMER, and were entertained by him with a sumptuous lunch. 



THE PBOCESSION. 9 

The Procession 

was formed on the public square at tlie hour named under the 
direction of Capt. Richard F. Barrett Chief Marshal and 
his aids Capt. A. B. C. Dakin, Charles E. Brown, William 
Barrett, George E. Walcott and Frank Gilmore. It con- 
sisted of 

The Salem Cadet Band, 24 pieces, 

The Concord Artillery, Company I, 6th Regt.M. V. M., 
Capt. J. L. Gilmore, 50 men. 
Old Concord Post, Grand Army of the Republic, 
E. J. Bartlett, Commander, 60 men. 
Concord Independent Mounted Battery, 
Capt. A. G. Fuller, 2 guns, 20 men. 
The Chelmsford Band, 24 pieces. 
The Concord Fire Department, 
Densmore B. Hosmer, Chief Engineer, 
West vale Engine Company, No. 2, 
Walter Wright, Foreman, 30 men. 
Independence Engine Co. No. 3, 
Mark Loftus, Foreman, 25 men, 
Hose Company No. 1, 
Frank R. Garfield, Foreman, 16 men. 

Each company of the Fire Department was in uniform and 
had its machine in the line. 

The procession marched promptly over the route indicated 
to the house of the Chairman at the head of Main street where 
it was reviewed by the Committee and their guests, who then in 
their carriages took their place in the line directly in rear of the 
Concord Artillery Company, their especial escort. 

From there the parade moved over Main street to the Town 
Hall through crowds of observers lining the sidewalks and win- 
dows the whole route. Nearly every house and store on the 
line was handsomely decorated with flags, streamers and bunt- 
ing, and in the bright sunshine and clear September air made 
under the brilliant foliage of the maples a pageant that gave to 
the old town a fine holiday appearance. 



10 CONCOBJ) CELEBBATIOJSr. 

At the Town Hall 

the oHieers, committee and guests occupied the }ilatfonn, the 
Grand Army Post and municipal officers the reserved seats 
in front, and the hall, gallery and ante rooms were crowded with 
citizens, a majority of them ladies. Tiie following programme 
neatly printed on stiff paper was distributed. 



i6c3g 



mm 



CELE(B'RA TIOJ^ 



Two Huiidred and Fiftietli Anniversary 



Incorporation of Concord, 

September 12, 1885. 




Pboguammk It 

PBAYER. 
Rev. Benjamin Eeynolds Bulkeley. 



GBEETIJ^G, 
John Shepard Keyes. 



SINGING. 

(By a Double Quartet from the church choirs.) 

Invitation, Kimhall. 



REPORT on the HISTORICAL TABLETS. 
Charles Hosmer Walcott. 



SINGING. 

Psalm 107, from the Bay Psalm Book, 1()40. 
Tu7ie, St. Martin'' s. 



ADDRESS. 
George Frisbie Hoar. 



SINGING. 
America, ... By the whole audience. 



CONCORD CELEBRATION. 



On a panel cut in Egg Rock at the junction of the Rivers 



ON THE HILL NASHAVVTUCK 

AT THE MEETING OF THE RIVERS 

AND ALONG THE BANKS 

LIVED THE INDIAN OWNERS OF 

MUSKETAQUID 
BEFORE THE WHITE MEN CAME 



On a slate in the wall of the Hill Burying Ground : 

ON THIS HILL 

THE SETTLERS OF CONCORD 

BUILT THEIR MEETING HOUSE 

NEAR WHICH THEY WERE BURIED 

ON THE SOUTHERN SLOPE OF THE RIDGE 

WERE THEIR DWELLINGS DURING 

THE FIRST WINTER 

BELOW IT THEY LAID OUT 

. THEIR FIRST ROAD AND 

ON THE SUMMIT STOOD THE 

LIBERTY POLE OF THE REVOLUTION 



On a bronze plate set in granite on Lowell St., near the Square 

HERE IN THE HOUSE OF THE 

REVEREND PETER BULKELEY 

FIRST MINISTER AND ONE OF THE 

FOUNDERS OF THIS TOWN 

A BARGAIN WAS MADE WITH THE 

SQUAW SACHEM THE SAGAMORE TAHATTAWAN 

AND OTHER INDIANS 

WHO THEN SOLD THEIR RIGHT IN 

THE SIX MILES SQUARE CALLED CONCORD 

TO THE ENGLISH PLANTERS 

AND GAVE THEM PEACEFUL POSSESSION 

OF THE LAND 

A. D. 1636. 



PROGRAMME. iS 

On a panel in a stone west of the Three-Arch Bridge : 

ON THIS FARM DWELT 

SIMON WILLARD 

ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF CONCORD 

WHO DID GOOD SERVICE FOR 

TOWN AND COLONY 

FOR MORE THAN FORTY YEARS 



On a bronze plate set in granite on the west side of the Square : 



NEAR THIS SPOT STOOD 

THE FIRST TOWN EHOUS 

USED FOR TOWN MEETINGS 

AND THE COUNTY COURTS 

1721-1794 



On a stone by the road, northwest of the Minute-Man 



ON THIS FIELD 

THE MINUTE MEN AND MILITIA 

FORMED BEFORE MARCHING 

DOWN TO THE 

FIGHT AT THE BRIDGE 



On a stone at the junction of the old Bedford and Boston roads 

meriam's corner 

the british troops 

retreating from the 

old north bridge 

were here attacked in flank 

by the men of concord 

and neighboring towns 

and driven under a hot fire 

to charlestown 



U CON COBB CELEBBATION. 

Promptl}' at eleven o'clock Chief Marshal Barrett called 
the attention of tlie audience to the Prayer by the Rev. Benja- 
min R. BuLKELEY, Chaplain of the day and minister of the oldest 
church in Concord formed by his ancestor the first settled min- 
ister Rev. Peter Bulkeley. 

At the close of this exercise the President of the day, Hon. 
John S. Keyes, (son of the Hon. John Ketes who presided at 
the Bi-Centennial celebration in 1835), greeted the assembly. 

Fellow Citizens: — For to-day, at least, you are all, by birth or 
adoption, citizens of Concord, the oldest inland town in the country, 
tlie earliest settlement above tide-water, tlie first battle-ground of the 
Revolution, the birth-place of American liberty; for if in Boston was 
the conception, and in Lexington the agonizing throes of deadly pain, 
here the blessed child was born. 

To this memorable and venerable town, your old or your present 
home, you have come up to renew your affection, and to this sweet 
Concord its committee bids you a cordial, earnest welcome. Welcome 
to its pleasant homes, its shaded streets, its (juiet rivers. Welcome 
to its scenes, where Emerson thought, and Hawthorne wrote, and 
Thoreau walked, and Alcott talked. Welcome to its fine library, its 
beautiful statue, its pure and flowing water, and if you stay long 
enough — procul este — to its peaceful cemetery. 

Read and ponder over its historic taldets set up on this anniversary 
to remind the coming generations of the struggles of their forefathers. 
These two hundred and fifty years cover nearly all of the history of 
America; take us back in thought to the unbroken forest and the 
Indian occupants of these meadows and hills. From Tahattawan, the 
Sagamore of Musketaquid, to Ralph Waldo Emerson, the seer and 
sage of Concord, is a long step in the world's progress. And yet two 
centuries which three lives might have spanned have seen these great 
changes. Dr. Bartlett, the old physician we all remember, had 
talked with the Centenarian, Dr. Holyoke, who had talked with Pere- 
grine White, the fii'st white child born in Plymouth. 

For its first century Concord was a struggle for existence, — for its 
second century a business and political centre, — for the last lialf cen- 
tury literature and philosophy have been its leading traits. Fifty years 
ago to-day was heai-d here the first of those matchless addresses 
that have made Emerson's words and thoughts known wherever our 
mother tongue is read or spoken. It has proved the key-note of the 
Concord of this generation. At that time this town had no claim to 
any man of more than local distinction, ('ould present no name known 
beyond the county limits. AVithin these fitty years how many have 
found here a "birthplace, a home or a grave" whose names are house- 
hold words." The roll of the illustrious dead can be left to you to 
recall, and of the living some are in your presence. 

On this anniversary naturally a comparison is made between the 



HISTORIC TABLETS. 15 

Concord of to-day and of former days. Contrast its appearance then, 
you elders who have come back, and say in what respect there has 
been a failure of duty by her citizens in the past. Impress it 
now on your mind, you youths that so soon will have it in your keep- 
ius, and see to it that Concord gains in your hands new and added 
renown. Let us all then give for the past thanks, for the present a 
welcome, and for the future a cheer. 

'' Invitatiou" hy Kimbaix was then rendered by the fol- 
lowing double quartette from the church choh-s: Mrs. William 
H. Brown and Miss Hattie E. Clark, sopranos ; Mrs. Geo. 
A. King and Miss Eugenie Houghton, altos ; Mr. William 
Barrett and Mr. Augustus Davis, tenors ; Mr. Thomas Todd 
and Mr. Charles E. Brown, bassos ; Mrs. Chas. E. Brown, 
accompanist. 

The presiding officer then said : 

This town, having no pressing need of any great undertaking to 
be completed on this anniversary, voted to permanently mark the 
important events of its earlier history. The more recent are modestly 
left to our successors to decide what proves worthy of commemora- 
tion. The writer of the volume "Concord in the Colonial Period," 
has increased our debt to him, by his labors in preparing and es- 
tablishing these historic tablets. And of the places which he, as 
chairman of the Sub-Committee, and his associates have 

"With graven stone 

And the enduring Ijronze," 

fittingly inscribed, we are now to hear Charles Hosmeu Walcott. 



Report on The Historic Tablets. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 

On this interesting anniversary, the Town of 
Concord aims to perpetuate upon its soil the names 
of the two men who were leaders in the enterprise 
of founding and building up the first inland town 
in Massachusetts, and to mark with lasting me- 
morials of stone and bronze some of the places 
most closely associated with our early history. 

Among the men whom the people of Concord 
delight to honor, Peter Bulkeley and Simon Wil- 



16 CONCOIiD CELEBRATION. 

lard are this day peculiarly entitled to grateful 
homage. The committee in order to avoid, so far 
as possible, comparisons of one benefactor with 
another, have not ventured, strictly speaking, to 
build monuments even to these deserving men, but 
this distinction, at least, is awarded them, that, 
with the exception of the Indian chiefs, no names 
except theirs are inscribed upon our tablets. 

Few towns or cities on this continent have 
within their limits so much that is worthy of notice. 
Rich as we are in places hallowed by associations 
with eminent men and gifted women — places redo- 
lent of heroic action — to designate what shall be 
accounted, for all time, most worthy of gratefid re- 
collection, and to frame apt inscriptions that shall 
set forth in language snnple, clear and accurate, 
the important facts, is to assume no light responsi- 
bility. This work the committee have endeavored 
faithfully to perform, and without betraying, it is 
hoped, any undue anxiety, they earnestly desire 
that the results may meet with the approval of the 
townspeople and their distinguished guests. 

The tablets displayed to-day for your inspec- 
tion are seven in number. The inscriptions are 
before you, and it is not necessary to repeat them. 
The historical thread that runs through them and 
joins them together is easil}^ traced. Taken to- 
gether, and in connection with the monuments that 
we already i.ossessed. they form an epitome of the 
town's history for a century and a half — from the 
beginning of the plantation to tlie wai* of the revo- 
hition. 

The old Indian, Jehoiakin, in his testimony 



HISTORIC TABLETS. 11 

given and recorded in the year 1684, informs us "that 
about 50 years since he lived within the bounds of 
that place which is now called Concord at the foot 
of an hill named IS^ashawtick," and that he was 
present at the house of Mr. Peter Bulkeley, when 
the bargain was made between the Indians and the 
English planters. The simple words inscribed on 
the rugged face of the rock, where the rivers meet, 
will serve to remind us and succeeding generations 
of a people who have vanished from the face of the 
earth, leaving scarcely a trace of themselves, ex- 
cept a few arrow-heads and stone pestles, and, 
here and there, a mound or a heap of clam shells. 

The land that was more especially the dwell- 
ing-place of these unfortunate people passed into 
the ownership of Simon Willard,^ and we have 
thought it fitting to acknowledge the town's debt to 
him by inscribing his name in letters of stone upon 
the farm that he owned and occupied in Concord, 
before he took up his abode in Lancaster, in 
response to more urgent demands for his services. 

Perhaps the most interesting of our memorials 
is the bronze plate set in red granite, on Lowell 

{ 1 ) The following appears in the town records': 

"Grantted to Simond Willard the South hill betwene the Eievers 
bounded one the north by the oxe pastuer, the lyue to go one rod 
beyond the tope of the hill at the uper end of his meadow one the 
weast syd of the south hill & so the lyne to rune in a straight lyne 
to the neerest pt of the North Riever & to the new fielld fence to 
widow Barrits fence." 

The context shows that this grant was made about the time that 
the bridge over the South River was built in accordance with the di- 
rections of the commissioners of Concord and Lancaster, — that is, be- 
tween 1G54 and 1656. It is a curious fact that, in Willard's deed to 
Marshall dated 1659, and in Marshall's dated 1G60\ the high laud de- 
signated as "South Hill" in the town's grant was called "North Hill," 



IS CONCORD CELEBRATION. 

Street, to mark the site of Mr. Peter Bulkeley's 
house, where the memorable interview took place 
between the white men and the Indians, and where, 
in the words of the witness mentioned above the 
"Indians declared themselves sattisfyed and told 
the Englishmen they were welcome." The monu- 
ment stands on land described in IGGl by Grace 
Bulkeley, widow of the minister, as her "house 
loot and mill loot which is thirtie on acars." Re- 
cent excavations on the spot have disclosed frag- 
ments of old bricks and what appeared to be 
portions of a st(me foundation. A few feet from 
the monument, within the memory of persons now 
living, there w^as an excavation or depression in 
ground that was commonly known as "the Bulkeley 
cellar-hole ;" and in the History of Concord, pub- 
lished in 1835, Mr. Lemuel Shattuck indicates the 
spot as the site of Mr. Bulkeley's house. After a 
full consideration of all accessible evidence, the 
committee have been led to the belief that the 
statement of the town's historian is correct. 

Scene worthy of an artist's canvas, that meet- 
ino: of the two races at the minister's house. The 
Indians few .in number, wasted by disease and 
poverty, and beginning to realize the bitter truth 
that the new day dawning in America could have 
no brightness for them; the Englishmen strong 
and keen, vigilant and hopeful, but just and con- 
siderate in all their actions, — the advanced guard 
of a splendid civilization. The wonder is, that this 
interesting event has so long escaped formal public 
recognition. 

A slab of dark-blue slate imbedded in the wall 



HISTORIC TABLETS. 19 

of the old burying-ground — "the hill neare the 
brooke" of the old record — points to the ridge that 
gave friendl}^ shelter to the homeless settlers and 
determined the course of their first road. Once the 
site of the Pm'itan meeting honse,^ it received into 
its dumb bosom and still retains the secrets of un- 
recorded tragedies of forty years. In later times 
was borne upon its summitthatprophecy of Ameri- 
can independence — ^the liberty-pole of the Revolu- 
tion. 

On the Common or Training-field a stone has 
been placed to mark the site of the first town house, 
built in 1721, partly of materials furnished by the 
second meeting house.'^ Here, in provincial times, 
courts were held and the inhabitants came together 
in town meeting, until by reason of the heated dis- 
cussions that immediately preceded the Kevolution, 
the building proved unequal to the service required 

1 It appears from the town records that, under date of Febi'uary 5, 
16S5-6, it was 

"Ordered that the meeting house stand on the hill neare the 
brooke on the east side of goodman Judsons lott;"' and 

"Oi-dered that the highway under the hill therough the Towne is 
to be leftfoure Rodes broad." 

2 On December 30, 1795 (Middlesex Deeds L, IIU f. 518) the Town 
of Concord conveyed to David Page "a certain piece of Common land 
lying in the middle of the town of Concord on which the old Court 
house now stands containing about twenty square rods of Ground and 
is bounded as follows viz, begining at the IS'orth westerly corner of 
the premisses at a stake iu the ground seventeen feet from the easterly 
corner of the school-house and runing south seventy four degs. west 
forty seven feet to Doctor Timothy Minot's land to a stake, thence 
runing South seventeen degs. East, by land of said Minot, and land 
belonging to the County of Middlesex one hundred and twenty nine 
feet to a stake drove in the Ground, thence runing north seventy four 
degs. East forty five feet to a stake in the ground fm-ty four feet from 
the northerly coi-uer of Lt. John Richardson's house thence rnning 
north fifteen degs. west one hundred it twenty nine feet to stake 
first mentioned — reserving the old Court house now on the premises." 



so CONCOBB CELEBRATION. 

of it; and subsequent gatherings in the venerable 
meeting house that stands facing the Green to-day 
gave evidence, at once of the people's intensity of 
of purpose and of their feeling that in the ap- 
proaching struggle human efforts Avould grow weary 
and slacken, unless inspired from above. Our monu- 
ment recognizes the historical value of the ISTew 
England town meeting. It is appropriately erected 
in a town where that form of government by the peo- 
ple survives in all its original purity and excellence. 

The logical interval is not great between the 
old toAvn house on the common and the hill beyond 
the river, where a granite block is set to commemo- 
rate the forming of the minute men and militia, 
in preparation for the first aggressive, forward 
movement against the King's troops. That move- 
ment was the natural and necessary result of their 
votes and resolutions passed in town meeting. It 
was fitting that the smoke rising from the town 
house roof and painly visible to the men on the hill, 
should give the signal for attacking the enemy. 

After the colHsion at the old iSTorth Bridge, 
the opposing forces withdrew a little, to renew their 
strength and adjust themselves to the new state of 
affairs, — the British, to call in their detachments 
and withdraw from the town as quickly as possi- 
ble, — the Americans to arouse the country and 
harass the invaders on their return. John Buttrick 
had taken upon himselt to declare war against the 
British empire, and his countrymen were not 
slow to make known their intention to sustain his 
action. Their determination was manifested with 
effect by the attack on the retreating foe at Meriam's 



HISTORIC TABLETS. SI 

Corner, where our seventh tablet is a boulder firmly 
set in the wall. 

I nowinvite your attention to an ancient docu- 
ment recently found by me in the Stale Archives/ 
a paper that has never been printed, or alluded to 
by writers who have treated of the events of the 
19th of April. Its great value, as it seems to me, 
consists in the fact that it supplies what has always 
been lacking in the accounts of the day, — a graphic 
sketch by an eye-Avitness of what was going on in 
the centre of Concord during its brief occupation 
by the enemy. 

I read from a copy of a petition dated Febru- 
ary 4, 177G, bearing the name of Martha Moulton, 
the old house-keeper of Master Timothy Miilot and 
addressed 

To The Honorable Court of the Province of the Massachusetts 
Bay in New England In their present session at "Water- 
town 
The Petition of Martha Moulton of Concord in s*^ Province 
Widow Woman. 

Humbly sheweth 
That on the 19th day of April 1775, In the forenoon The 
Town of Concord, wherein I dwell, was beset with an army of 
Regulars who, in a Hostile manner enter'd the Town and Draw'd 
up in Form before the Door of the house where I Live, and 
there they continu'd oii the Green feeding their horses within 
five feet of the Door — and about 50 or 60 of them was in and 
out the house, calling for water & what the}' wanted, for about 
three hours at the same time all our near Neighbours In the 
greatest Consternation were Drawn off to places far from the 
thickest part of the Town, where I Live and had taken witli 
them their Families & what of their best Effects they cou'd 
carry,— some to a neighbouring Wood, and others to remote 

1 Massachusetts Archives, Vol. 180, Page 306. 



n CONCOBD CELEBRATION. 

houses for security. Your Petitioner being Left to the mercy 
of six or seven hundred armed men and no person near but an 
old man of S.'t years & myself J 1 years old & both very Infirm 
— It may easily be Imagin'd wliat a sad condition y"" Petit"^ must 
be in. 

Under these circumstanc^es y' Petif Coraitted heiself, more 
Especially to the Divine protection and was very remarkably 
helpt with so much Fortitude of mind, as to wait on tliem as 
they call'd — with water & what we had — Chairs for Maj. Pit- 
earn & 4 or /) more officers who sat at the Door Viewing their 
men at length y'' Petif had, by degrees cultivated so much 
favor as to talk a little with them — when all on a sudden TheJ 
had set fire to the Great-Gun Carriages Just by the house and 
while they were in flames y"' Petif" saw smoke arise out of the 
Town house higher than the Ridge of the house — Then y"" Petif 
did put her Life, as it were in her hand, and ventur'd to beg of 
the officers to send some of their men to put out the fire, but 
they took no notice, only sneered. Your Petif seing the Town 
house on fire & must in a few minutes be past recovery Did yet 
venture to Expostulate with the officers Just by her as she 
stood with a pail of Water in her hand Begging of them to send 
It — when they only said — O mother we wont do you an}- harm 
Dont be concern'd mother — & such like talk. The house still 
burning and knowing that all the Row of 4 or 5 houses as well 
as the Schoolhouse was in Certain danger y"" Petif^ (not know- 
ing but she might provoke them by her Incessant pleading — 
yet ventur'd to put as much strength to her arguments as an 
Importunate widow cou'd think of — And so y"" Petif can safely 
say that under Divine Providence she was an Instrument of 
saving the Court House and how many moie is not certain 
from being consum'd — with a great deal of valuable furniture — 
and at the great Risque of her Life, at Last by one pail of 
water after another they sent and Did Extinguish the fire and 
now ,ma3' it please this Hon'd Court, as several People of note 
in the Town have advis'd y' Petif Thus to Infoiin the public 
of what she had done — and as no notice has been taken of her 
for the same — she begs Leave to Lay this her case before your 
honors and to Let this hon'd Court also know that y' Petif is 
not only so Old as to be not able to earn wharewith to support 
herself — is very Poor and shall think lier highly honor'd in 



HISTORIC TABETS. 2S 

the Favorable notice of this Hon'd Court, as what y' Petif 
has Done was of a Public as a\ ell as a private Good and as 
your honors are in a Public Capacity y"" Petif begs that it may 
not be taken ill In this way to ask in the most humble manner 
something — as a Fatherly Bounty — such as to your great wis- 
dom & Compassion shall seem meet and your Petitioner, as in 
Duty bound For the peace & prosperity of this our American 
Israel, shall ever pray 

Maktha Moulton 

Concord 
Feb. 4 1776 
The Committee upon the forgoing Petition have attended that 

Service & beg leave to Report the following Resolve 
In the House of Representatives May 8th 1776 

Resolved than there be paid out of the Publick Treasury to 
James Barrat Esqr. the sum of three pounds for the use of Mar- 
tha Moulton the Petitioner for her good Services in so boldly 
& successivly preventing the enemy from Burning the Town 
House in Concord as set forth in her Petition. 

[Indorsed in the same handwriting as the petition.] 

''For M^ 
Samuel Freeman 
att Falmouth., 
Present Clerk 
of the Hon^ House 
of Representatives 
In 
Watertoion.'"' 

[In another handwriting.] 

"J/'" Kinshury 
3P' Woodbridge 
M^ Bent:' 
''Martha Moidton's • 

Petition:' 
' 'Bead May 8 & not 
accepted:'' 



24 CONCOBB CELEBRATION. 

The choir then sang the old 107th Psalm to the tune of St. 
Martin, each of the lines being deaconed in the old fashion before 
singing. 

The President : 

On hardly more than an acre of land on the main street of Con- 
cord, stood three houses from which have gone forth, in the last fifty 
years, live representatives to the Congress of the United States. Of 
these, one has been a member of the Cabinet, and one a Senator at 
Washington. That one, the youngest of them, connected by blood 
and lineage with the Declaration of Independence and the March 
through Georgia to the Sea, I have the honor of presenting to you 
now as the Orator of the Day. 

In his native town, on this jjlatform built of the oak of the Old 
North Bridge where his grandfather and the ancestors of many of 
you once 

'"Fired the shot heard round the world," 
his eloquence cannot fail to inspire and delight you. The Senator of 
Massachusetts, GEORGE FRISBIE HOAR. 



Address by Hon. George F. Hoar. 

The story of Concord, the most noble, touch- 
ing, and famous story that any community which 
now governs itself after the ancient fashion of a 
N^ew England town has the right to tell, has been 
narrated by orators and historians with whom no 
successor will, for a moment, enter into competi- 
tion. Some of you remember when the aged clergy- 
man of the town, who, with his gray hairs and his 
mild authority, seemed the very genius of ]:)uritan 
and revolutionary Concord, at the end of a half- 
century's service, recounted to his congregation 
the wonderful dealing of God with his people who 
"here first planted the standard of the cross and of 
liberty." Three years before, Edward Everett, 
then in his prime and splendor, traced the causes 
and the resnlts of the events of the 19th of April, 
1775. By his magic art, he caused his audience 



ADDRESS. 25 

to hear once more, after fifty years silence, the 
sound of the old ^^Tew England drums beating on 
all the roads, and to see again, as in visible pre- 
sence, the march to the bridge, and the flashing of 
the unintermitted fire that lined every patch of 
trees, every rock, every stream of water, every 
building, every stonewall, from Meriam's corner to 
Charlestown. Her own most illustrious son, the 
foremost teacher in his generation of both hemis- 
pheres, on the day of her second centennial, summed 
up for Concord the rich lessons of her history. In 
1850, Mr. Kantoul delivered the masterly discourse 
which was his last great public service before his 
untimely death. Bancroft has compressed the re- 
sult of investigations begun more than sixty years 
ago into that twenty-eighth chapter, which, if 
American liberty survive, shall outlast Thucydides. 
In 1875, the successor of Dr. Ripley, in a sermon 
inspired by the loftiest faith of the Fathers, showed 
that the Revolution was "the reverence for God's 
sovereignty and His righteous will enacted into 
law, and brought into martial array." After all 
this, what would have been impossible to almost 
any other living orator, in the presence of Presi- 
dent Grant and his cabinet, the executives of many 
states, and a vast concourse of citizens, Mr. Curtis 
told again, with new and increased interest, the 
familiar tale which he had learned in Concord in 
his boyhood. 

There is little left for us, to-day, but common- 
places; — and to thank the Power who hath so 
ordered our lot and our lineage that our common- 
places are such things as these. 



26 CONCORD CELEBRATION. 

It is difficult to tell the plain story of any New 
England town without seeming to be boastful. We 
will strive, in all we have to say on this occasion, 
to keep within the bounds of that moderation, 
which has always been so prominent a trait in the 
character of Concord. But still we must describe 
her as she appears to her children. We have a 
right to tell our mother on her birthday that we 
love her, and that her venerable face is fairer in our 
eyes than all the roses of girlhood. 

The chief marvel which impresses us when we 
look at the Concord of two hundred and fifty years 
ago is the permanence of what our ancestors 
founded. Children of an adventurous race, born 
to build states, and to furnish the material of which 
states are builded, with the ancestral Norseman's 
hunger for sea and horizon and forest, dwellers on 
this sandy plain, in this bleak and savage climate, 
with no wall to keep them in, tempted in later 
generations by luxurious city and fertile west, how 
much of the original Concord, with its institutions, 
its character, its faith, its blood and breed, is here. 
Like the rest of the old thirty New England towns, 
from whom one third of the people of the United 
States are descended, it has given of itself to a 
thousand communities, all over the country. But, 
perhaps more than any othei', it has assimilated 
and digested into its own likeness what has come 
to it from without. 

We are celebrating the origin of a life which 
has been contemjiorary with a large part of what 
is remembered or is worth remembering in history. 
Fifteen years after the landing at Plymouth, five 



ADDBESS. t^ 

ye^rs after John Winthrop came to Salem and 
foimded Boston, civilization turned westward from 
the sea coast and planted its first footstep here. 
The men who came to Concord with Peter Bulkeley 
and Simon Willard had seen in England persons 
who, in their time had looked into the faces of men 
who were alive when Sebastian Cabot sailed into 
Bristol harbor with the news that he had planted 
the English flag on an unknown continent "larger 
than Christendom." They had seen men who re- 
membered when the first Bible was printed, and 
the first Protestant sermon preached. 

Before their day, how little had happened that 
comes down to us among the living realities of his- 
tory. We have a knowledge, which we call his- 
torical, of one great empire, and that somewhat 
less in extent than our own. The roots of the 
English constitution and common law had been 
growing for some centuries in the soil of the little 
territoiy called England. The great reigns of 
Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth had dispelled the 
darkness of the nliddle ages. All else of human 
history which has survived, which we teach our 
children, to which an educated man cares to look 
for instruction or example, is that of a single Asia- 
tic peoplj less in number than Massachusetts, a 
Gi'ecian commonwealth smaller than Boston, two 
brilliant reigns in Spain, Holland behind her dikes, 
Switzerland on her chainless mountains, the brief 
glories of poetry and art of a few Italian cities, the 
brief struggles for liberty of a few towns by the 
northern sea. Pretty much every thing else of the 
earlier story of our planet has perished fi'omamcmg 



^8 CONCORD CELEBRATION. 

living realities, and belongs to the domain of the 
antiquary or the archseologist, to be conjectured 
fromruins, or fromfossilfe^bones, or broken pottery- 

Concord was settled before any American town 
that does not touch tide-water. Her life has 
been longer than that of thirty-three of our thirty- 
eight states, and is about coeval with the other five. 
She is nearly twice and one half as old as the na- 
tion, and the constitution of Massachusetts. All 
modern literature since the death of Shakespeare, 
in whose lifetime our early settlers were born, all 
modern science, all modern invention, is since their 
day. The world had not heard of the law of gravi- 
tation, and had just heard, but not yet believed, 
that the earth moves and the blood circulates. 

As I pointed out, — in speaking of the history 
of a portion of our original town last year, — since 
our fathers came here, the great empire of Russia 
and all the South American states have taken their 
place among civilized nations. 

The mighty Germany, 

She of the Danube and the Northern Sea, 

has been built up from sixty petty states. Six 
dynasties have held dominion in Spain. Four have 
sat in succession on the throne of England, while 
she has united with lierself Ireland and Scotland, 
lost America, conquered Canada, and subjected two 
hundi-ed and fifty million Asiatics. France has 
been twice a republic, twice a monarchy again, and 
now is a republic for the third time. Italy has 
shaken the armed heel of Austria from ofi!* her neck, 
has bniiisluMl the Bourbons, and overthrown the 



ADDRESS. ^^ 

temporal power of the Pope. Belgium and Hol- 
land have been joined and sevei-ed. The star of 
Poland has disappeared from the sky. Japan has 
risen in the East, has thrown otf her barbarism of 
ages, and come to sit docile at the feet of America, 
to learn civiUzation, laws, manners. Yet how 
much, in the great essentials of self-government, of 
character, of religious faith, of the love of liberty, 
is pi'eserved of the (Joncord of 1635 in the Concord 
of to-day! The town our fathers planted is here, 
as little changed, in its two and a half centuries, as 
any other civilized community that has a history. 
The town and the parish abide as our fathers 
framed them. The simple and cheap mechanism, 
of which no man knows the contriver, has, with- 
out substantial change, here perlormed per- 
fectly all the chief functions of government "in 
simple democratic majesty.''' The first church 
covenant, drawn up by Peter Bulkeley, would re- 
quire little change, if any, to be accepted to-day, 
by a large majority of the people, as a rule of 
faith and practice. 

I have now before me an original memorial, ad- 
dressed to the Genei'al Court in 1664, twenty-nine 
years after the settlement. It bears the names of 
ninety-three of the inhabitants. It is the sure 
prophecy of the 19th of April, and of the Declai-a- 
tion of Independence. As soon as Charles II. was 
firmly seated on the throne, and the miti'e and the 
crown had become omnipotent again. Lord Claren- 
don turned his attention to the subjugation of the 
little Commonwealth, where all the strength left to 
Puritanism seemed to dwell. " It may be pre- 



^0 bONCORD CELESkAttON, 

sumed," he declared, ''"that they Avill harden in 
their constitution, and grow on nearer to a com- 
nionweaUh, toward which they are ah-ead}' well- 
nigh ripened.'' He nrged npon the King that 
" scarce any future accideut or state of aftairs can, 
in auy probabihty, rendei" the reduction of that 
doubtful people more feasible than at this point of 
time they may be found to be/' At his sugges- 
tion, four shijjs of wai-, the first that ever dropped 
anchor in Massachusetts waters, and four hundred 
troops were despatched to Boston, conveying the 
royal commissioners, who were empowered to as- 
sume and exercise the fullest jurisdiction, civil, 
criminal, and military. The General Court, o\\ 
their side, prepared themselves for the defence of 
their charter, put in ordei" the trainbands, and 
placed an able officer in command of the Castle. I 
cannot here give the history of that me^Aorable 
struggle, which the skill of the Puritan statesmen 
prolonged foi- twenty years. My purpose is to 
show the teuiper of Concoi-d and the stable chnr- 
acter of her population. 

To the honoured genenill Couil of the Massachusets Collonie, 
hohl at Boston October -^- 11) : lOliJ : (he humble representation 
(jf the Inhal)itants of the Towne of Conctoril, l)oth freemen ami 
others. 

Forasmucli as we uncU'rsland, that there have been complaints 
maxU' nnto his Majestic, concerning divisions amongst us, and 
dissatisfaction about tlu' pi-esent Government of this Colonic ; 
we wliose names ari' ini(h'r\vritteu doe hereby testilie our unan- 
imous satisfaction in. :in<l adhearing to, the present Govern- 
ment, soe longe, and onk'rly estal)lished, and our earnest de- 
sire of tiie Continuance thereof, and of all tlie libertys. and priv- 
iledges appfitaining thei'eunto. wiiidi are Contained in the 



ADDRESS. 31 

Charter granted 'oy Kino- James, and King Charles the fiist of 
Blessed Memorie ; under the encouragement, and soeni'ity of 
which Charter, we or our fathers ventured over the Ocean, into 
this wilderness, through great hazzards, charges, and difficulties : 
And seeing our rightful! Soveraigne hath priviledged you with 
power by force of amies to defend this place and i)eople (we 
having encouragement from the honoured Council, cannot but 
acknowledge it a mercie of god, that you soe minde the good 
and preset vation of this place, and people, according to oath) 
we doe declare that we are readie to assist both with persons 
and estates, that soe by the Goodness and mercy of god we 
may still enjoy present priviledges and remaine yours in all 
Humble observance. 



Dr. Ripley says, ti'iily, that " it was searc-ely, if 
any, less adventurous, or pei-ilous, in 103."), to come 
from Cambridge to Concord, than from Holland to 
Plymouth in 1620, or from England to Salem, yeven 
or eight years afterwards." Yet the men who less 
than to onty years before had made that perilous 
journey by the Indian path, theii' little town still 
but an outpost, eleven years befoi-e Philip's war, 
with their sons, were girding up their loins again 
to defend with life, and everything that belonged 
to life, their precious plant of " the cross and of 
liberty." Of the ninety-three men who signed that 
paper two hundred and twenty-one years ago, there 
are fourteen whose descendants, beai'ing their 
names, live on the same land to-day. There are 
twenty-three others whose descendants of the same 
name dwell within what were then the limits of 
Concord. There are four others of whom the same 
is probably true. At least nine more are repre- 
sented through female descendants. -A few others 
have become extinct in Concord, quite lately. At 



y 



32 CONCORD CELEBRATION. 

least fifty of the ninety-three signers of that paper 
are re^^resented, I presume, in this assembly. Here 
are the names, honored now as then, which have 
made \\\) so much of the character and history of 
Concord, and of the towns which have been set oif 
from her, for two hundred and fifty years. It is 
headed by Thomas Brooks. Here is the stnrdy 
Kentishman, Dolor Davis, ancestor of three Massa- 
chusetts governors, — Davis, Long, and Robinson, 
— a vine whose vintage, like the best wine, con- 
tinues to im])rove with years. Here are Brooks, 
Browne, Fletcher, Flint, Ilosmer, Stow, Hay ward, 
Heywood, Wheeler, Hunt, Miles, Hoare, Tailor, 
Baker, Heald, Hartwell, Davis, Barrett, Rice, 
Wood, Merriam, Dudley, Jones, Ball, Dakin, Bai-- 
ker, Huttrick, Billings, Blood. I believe there are 
few English towns who could tell such a story. 

A very few of the great mass of mankind im- 
press you with a sense of their •individuality. 
When you think of them it is not a v^gue human 
image, it is ]N"apoleon, Washington, Webstei*, F^n- 
elon, that rises in the imagination. Of the multi- 
tude of cities and towns whose names are pre- 
served in history there are a vei-y few that seem 
to be anything but an aggregate or society of men, 
distinguished by name or locality only from all the 
others belonging to the same region or country or 
centuiy. As you go fi-om state to state, or from 
district to district, one name, one country, one 
town is pretty much like another. But when 
Athens, or Edinburgh, or Boston is named, you 
have a conce]jtion of a separate life, a life like no 
othei', with a quality of its own, like a face of Yan 



ADDRESS. 33 

Dyke or a statue of Phidias, or a striking human 
character. The number of communities of this 
class is not large. But I think that by the gen- 
eral consent of all intelligent students of her 
history, Concord would be held to belong to it. 
The town was settled by meu direct from Eng- 
land, chosen by Bulkeley to be his companions. 
The quahty which he and they gav^e it, it retained. 
The name is commonly supposed to have come 
from the harmony of the compact with the Indians 
by which the title was acquired. But the record 
shows that this name was chosen before our an- 
cestors came into the forest. It is doubtless due 
to the taste and gentle spirit of Bulkeley. You 
do not find in its history a trace of the fierce, cruel, 
haughty, intolerant temper, so often attributed to 
Puritanism, of which John Endicott is the type. 
It was the ideal Puritan community. ISTo Quaker 
was whipped, no witch hung, no heretic banished. 
The persecution which had driven them from 
England, had left no bitterness which we can 
trace. " Bulkeley's Gospel Covenant," a book 
made up, he declares, of sermons delivered to 
his people, and received by them "with unani- 
mous approbation and assent as the truth of 
God," exhibits in style and thought the best 
scholarship of the generation which translated the 
Bible in King James' version. Some of its pas- 
sages, in their tenderness and loftiness, remind 
us of the most aff*ectionate i)arts of the epistles 
of Paul. It breathes throughout the very spirit 
of grace, mercy, and peace. "O -England! my 
deare native countrey," he exclaims, "whose wombe 



34 CONCORD celebration: 

bare me, whose breasts nourished me, and in whose 
armes I should desh'e to die, Give eare to one of 
thy children which dearly loveth thee — Stirre up 
thyselfe with thankfulnesse and joy of heart to 
embrace the things of thy peace. Esteem the 
gospel as thy pearle, thy treasnre, thy crowne, thy 
felicite." 

The aboriginal title to the land was honorably 
acquired and paid for. Major Willard and Thomas 
Flint, as well as their minister, were close friends 
of Eliot and Gooldn, and exerted themselves to 
secure just and humane treatment for the Indian. 
Tahattawan, the sachem of Miisketaquid, was one 
of the earliest converts, and remained steadfast 
until his death. 

It was about a century from the death of the last 
of our early settlers who came from England to the 
breaking out of the Revolution. It is a century of 
'Nqw England life which has had too little regard 
either from local or general history. It had few 
great reputations. Mr. Webster's list of the great 
names of New England in 1720, at the end of its 
first century, is almost ludicrous for its poverty. 
But it Avas a wonderful century for the training of 
a great people. The whole hundred years was a 
romance full of stirring adventure. It was a life 
under arms. Capt. AVheeler's expedition to 
Brookfield in 1G75 surpasses in interest any in- 
vention of Cooper. The three things from which 
comes the heroic tem]:>er, from which comes a race 
fitted for the most sti'cnuous contests of war and 
statesmanship, capable of the great moral self- 
restraints, as needful to length of life and health in 



ADDRESS. 35 

a nation as temperance to that of the body, were 
the constant discipline of this people. These three 
things were, — war, straining to the utmost every 
resource of courage, endurance, and skill; — the 
century-long discussion of the natural rights of the 
people, their rights under the charter and British 
constitution, which lay at the foundation of the 
State; — and the constant consideration of the rela- 
tion of man to his Creator and to the controlling law 
of duty. On the one hand were the French and 
Indians, a constant menace to the state whose 
frontier was never a day's march from Concord. 
On the other was the mighty power of Eng- 
land, wheie Stuart, Cromwell, Orange, Hanover 
alike looked with jealousy on the little self-govern- 
ing commonwealth. There was scarcely a Con- 
cord family that had not some member killed, 
wounded, or a prisoner, or had not its own story 
of perilous adventure and escape. The town 
furnished many brave and able officers of high 
rank. AVhat West Point education was ever like 
this military school ! Eveiy boy was a sharp- 
shooter. The father told the childi-en at the fire- 
side the tale of Philip's war, of the burning of 
Lancaster and Groton, of the fight at Sudbury, of 
the escape of Mary Shepard, of the rescue of Mrs. 
Rowlandson, of Wheeler's desperate struggle, of 
Willard's coming to the deliverance of Brookfield 
at sundown, of the great French wars of William 
and Mary and Queen Anne, of Lovell's Fight, of 
Fort Edward, of William Henry, of Crown Point, 
of Martinique, of the Havana, of Louisburg, which 
our fathers captured with its own cannon, of Que- 



36 COKCORD CELEBRATION: 

bee, where at last the lilies went down before the 
lion, never again, bnt for a brief period in Louisi- 
ana, to float as an emblem of dominion over any 
j^art of IS^orth America. In all this the town did 
its full share. To every one of these things belongs 
a Concord story. These were the experiences not 
of wild and adventurous spirits, but of sober citi- 
zens, of church-members, and deacons. The old 
Indian fighter discoursed with his neighbor of the 
true boundary which sepai'ates liberty and author- 
ity in the state, of the principles of constitutional 
freedom, and the defence of his natural rights 
against king and parliament and royal gov- 
ernor. Fi'om the pul])it a succession of able and 
pious clergymen, such as for two hundred and fifty 
years have been the pride and crown of Concord, 
discoursed to an obedient congi'egation of their rc- 
lationli to their Creator, of duty, and of the things 
that lay hold on eternal life. 

The first century and a half was but one long 
drill for the Revolution. 80 it is that the Power 
which planted the coal, and whose subtle chemis- 
try gets ready the iron for the use of the new race, 
gets his children ready, that they shall not fail in 
that supremest hour when America is to be born. 

Thei'e were three se])arate acts in that im- 
mortal drama of the 19th of April, — each unlike 
the other, each unlike any other. First was the 
death of l*arker and Muzzey, and Munroe and 
Harrington, and their comrades, the first-born 
of American liberty, who fell on the green at 
Lexington, in the gray dawn of that April moi'u- 
ing. Then comes the march to the bridge at Cdu- 



ADDRESS. 37 

cord, — John Bnttrick's word of command, from 
which dates the separation from England and the 
hberty of a hemisphere ; the shot heard round the 
world; the countenance of Isaac Davis, pleasant 
and unchanged in death; the irresolute march and 
countermarch of the British on the green/ '^he cT 
retreat begun here, never ended till Yorktown. 
These things are living and real to us, as if we had 
seen them yesterday, and shall be living and real to 
our children and our children's children until time 
shall be no more. 

Perhaps we do not rate as highly as it deserves 
the skill and courage shown in the third act of the 
drama, the long pursuit from Concord to Chai'les- 
town. One of the famous generals of oar late 
war, a distinguished man of a distinguished family, 
told me a few months ago, that he had recently 
made a thorough military study of the events of the 
19th of April, and that he has been very gi'eatly 
impressed with the military ability shown by the 
Americans in the pursuit of the British on that 
occasion. It is a most dangerous and difficult thing 
successfully to pursue and attack a disciplined 
force, well armed, and protected by flanking guards. 
The events of that day are a test and a demon- 
stration of the highest military quality in the peo- 
ple of a whole comnuinity, more than is found in 
many great battles. 

I think there can be no reasonable doubt that 
the events of the 19th of April had been, as ftii- as 
possible, expected and arranged beforehand. The 
notion that the breaking out of hostilities was an 
unpremeditated, unexpected, unprei3ared, sponta- 



38 CONCORD CELEBRATION. 

neons outbreak of the people, that a prairie fire 
caught and spread over the land, has prevailed 
largely in the popular mind, and has found coun- 
tenance from some high authorities. I^othing is 
farther from the truth. The American Revolution 
was a war as clearly foreseen and as thoroughly 
prepared for to the extent of their power, by the 
party which prevailed, as any war in history. Mil- 
itary stores, such as their means permitted, were 
gathered, military forces organized and officered, 
and articles of war enacted, and the machinery, 
legislative and executive, of civil government 
created and put in order. When, on the 1st of 
September, 1774, Gen. Gage seized the powder 
belonging to the pi'ovinces on Mystic river, and two 
field-pieces at Cambridge, the militia of AYorces- 
ter and Hampden counties began their march 
to Boston. Putnam heard of it in Connecticut, 
and summoned the militia there to take up arms. 
At least twenty thousand men were on the way. 
They were stojiped by couriers from the Com- 
mittee of Safety, who determined that the time 
for force had not yet come. Putnam wrote to 
them: "But for counter-intelligence, we should 
have had forty thousand men well equipped and 
ready to nnirch this morning. Send a written ex- 
press to the foreman of this connnittee when you 
have occasion lor our martial assistance; we shall 
attend your summons, and shall glory in having 
a share in the honor oC ridding our country of the 
yoke of tyranny, which our forefathers have not 
borne, neither will we; and, we much desire you 
to keep a strict guard ovei' the remninder of 



ADDRESS. 39 

your powder, for that must be the great means, 
under God, for the salvation of our eountry." 

" How soon we may need your most effectual 
aid." answered the committee, " we cannot de- 
termine; but, agreeably to your wise proposal, we 
shall give you authentic intelligence on such con- 
tingency. The hour of vengeance comes lowering 
on: repress your ardor, but let us adjure you not 
to smother it." 

When the September court met in Worcester in 
1774 the main street was occupied by five thousand 
men, arranged under leaders, in companies, six 
deep. 

Unquestionably the instant march to Concord 
of the minute-men and militia in companies, and 
the care not to begin the war by fii'ing before they 
were fired upon was the result of a previous order 
from the authority which could send back to their 
homes, without an instant's hesitation, twenty thou- 
sand men, armed, and eager for the conflict. Col. 
Barrett's order not to fire unless fired upon was in 
strict accordance with the declaration of Eleazer 
Brooks, a member of the Pi-ovincial Congress, early 
in the morning, — "It will not do for us to begin 
the war." 

Orators may be ready to adopt a theory as to 
the course of our history which attributes a magic 
influence to the weapon they wield, or gives an un- 
due proportion to the elements and passions in 
human nature to which they appeal. Patrick 
Henry utters a passionate outcry, or Wendell 
Philliixs a burning in^^*^ive, or some stirring event C/ *— -*^^- — - 
sends an electric shock through the land, and lo! 



40 CONCORD CELEBRATION. 

the people overthrow a dynasty, or strike ofi' the 
fetters from a race of slaves, and Liberty is born. 
This may be, for aught 1 know, human nature 
among- Mussulman tribes or Parisian mobs. But 
it is not American nature; it is not Massachusetts 
nature; it is not Concord nature. The sturdy 
oak of American freedom has no such mushroom 
growth. The men who in their generation 
achieved American Independence, like their chil- 
dren, who in their generation preserved the Union 
and fi-eed the slave, governed their action and 
measured their duty with the deliberation and 
calmness that became men who were to establish 
constitutions and men who were to preserve them. 
The habit of setting forth the law of religious and 
moral obHgation in a written creed, and of look- 
ing for the limits and restraints of civil authority 
to a charter or written constitution and bill of 
rights, begets caution, exactness in reasoning, and 
dislike of exaggeration. Every step they took was 
premeditated, measured, firmly planted, and without 
a retreat. Their leaders were grave and tem- 
perate thinkers, aged and sober clergymen, states- 
men prepared for making constitutions, and the 
gi-eat permanent systems of law that lie at the 
foundation of all society. Thc}^ valued the old- 
fashioned virtue of consistency, and they practised 
the old-fashioned virtue of constancy. They 
detested and rebuked exaggeration. "The liberty 
they pursued,"" as Burke well said, " was a liberty 
from order, from virtue, from morals, from ivligion, 
and was neither hypocj'itically ii<>i" fanatically 
followed.-' 



ADDRESS. 41 

It has been often said that at the moment of 
John Bnttrick's word of command American na- 
tional life began; and that is true. The order 
was given to British subjects. The order was 
obeyed by American citizens. But it was also the 
germinant moment of a principle destined not 
merely to control a single state or nation, but 
sooner or later to j^ervade all civilized nations in 
both hemispheres. It is the principle not that men 
are to be governed, but that they are to govern 
themselves, nnder the restraints imposed by jus- 
tice and reason. I'he great and crowning glory 
and distinction of humanity, the imposing, by itself 
upon itself, of a rule furnished by reason, tested 
and approved by conscience, controlhng the incli- 
nation and the will,Avas thereafter to be the method 
of mankind in the conduct of states. 

When we consider the grandeur and the vast 
consequences of the events of that day the local 
controvei'sies to which they have given rise become 
inexpressibly trivial. Thei-e is glory and honor 
enough to go round. From within a I'adius of six 
or eight miles from this spot came all the men who 
encountered the invaders any where until they were 
well on their retreat. To Joseph Robinson, of 
Westford, is due the lionor, rare in military history, 
of declining rank, but accepting in its fullest ex- 
tent both danger and responsibility. The ball from 
the first hostile shot passed under his arm as he 
walked by the side of Buttrick. With that excep- 
tion, the men from before whom the Bi'itish re- 
treated were from the towns embraced in the 
original Concord. The number of the slain is no 



42 CONCORD CELEBRATION. 

necessary test of the imjDortaiice of a battle. The 
Eno-hshmen lost at As>-iiicoiii't but four oentle- 



men : 



None else of name; and of all other men 
But five and twenty. 

Plassey, which gained India to England, cost the 
victoi's seven European and sixteen native soldiers 
killed, thirteen European and thirty-six natives 
wounded. The Americans lost but twenty-seven 
at ^ew Orleans. There were more Englishmen 
slain on the retreat from Concord than fell of 
Wolfe's army who captured Quebec; more than 
were slain oi' the Greek side at Marathon. IMore 
men fell on both sides that day than at the fii'st 
battle of Bull Run. 

But all this is but a season of planting. The 
Puritan secured for his descendants the right to wor- 
ship God, and the men of the Revolution the right 
to self-government. Whether these things were 
worth doing, or, at least, whether their children 
are not the last people who should relate their 
story, must be determined by a survey of later and 
more peaceful times. Mankind cannot always be 
submitted to tests like war and the founding of 
states. The glory of the founder is ihe finished 
building. The glory of the patriot is the country 
he has saved. Children's children are the crown of 
old men. The hundred years beginning in 17S3, 
and just ended, must tell us whether it Avere not 
better that i>ulkeley had staged in the pleasant 
vales of Bedfordshire, and Simon Willard and 
James Hosmer in rich and fertile Kent. 



ADDRESS. 43 

We are as far from the Concord to which Emer- 
son spoke in 18:>5 as that was from the Concord 
of the Kevolution. The man or woman is now de- 
parted fi'om among the Hving, or is p;ist the Psahii- 
ist's allotted term of human life, Avho, a youth of 
tAventy-one, listened in the veneral)le church to the 
sweet, rich tones of our beloved sage, as he spake 
to the congregation, adorned by those crowns of 
glor}'^, the hoary heads of the survivors of the Rev- 
olution. 

We can look, as with the ej^es of posterity, upon 
more than half a century of the peaceful and quiet 
life of this community. The labor of the founders, 
the struggle with England, the crowning sacrifice 
and conflict of the Revolution, were but to win the 
right to be and to remain what Concord was in 
1835, and has been since. It was as absolute a 
democracy, in the best sense of that word, as ever 
existed on the foce of this earth. Mr. Emerson 
thought that " the town records should be printed 
and presented to the governments of Europe, — to 
the English nation as a thank-offering, and as a 
certificate of the progress of the Saxon race; to 
the continental nations as a lesson of humanity 
and love." " Tell them," he said, " the Union has 
twenty-four States, and Massachusetts is one. Tell 
them Massachusetts has three hundred towns, and 
Concord is one; that in Concord are five hundred 
I'atable polls, and every one has an equal vote." 
But it was something far more than a political de- 
mocracy. The most extreme and oppressive social 
distinctions often prevail under constitutions secur- 
ing the most absolute political equality. The 



44: CONCORD CELEBRATION. 

relation of the neighbor, at its very best, existed 
here in that sense which Dr. Johnson gives as its 
signification in divinity: "One partaking of the 
same nature, and therefore entitled to good offices. " 
There was little wealth and little poverty. There 
were no palaces and no hovels. I do not think it 
occurred to the richest man in town that he was 
thereby entitled to any superiority, or to the poor- 
est that he must for that reason doff his hat to any 
man. When the people formed their procession 
for their centennial, if the little black girl were 
left alone, the beautiful favorite of the school-room 
took her place by her side. The towns-people Avho 
were well-to-do took an interest as in friends in 
the inmates of the pooi'-house, who, under the old 
settlement laws, must have had, by themselves or 
through their ancestors, some close relation to the 
town. This sense of social and personal equality 
was by no means inconsistent with a just regard 
for authority or personal character. Intellect and 
excellence were held at their proper rate, and re- 
ceived their due respect. The town was as early 
as any to insist on a high standard of public-school 
education for both sexes. 

It is often said that the town meeting educated 
the people to self-government; that town meetings 
are to liberty what ])i'iniaiy schools are to science: 
they bring it Avithin the ])eople's reach, they teach 
men how to use and how to enjoy it; and this is 
true. But the value of the Xew England town, 
the value of this town, in a most eminent degree, 
consists in something more than that. This value 
is in its personality. It is a being calculated to 



ADDRESS. 45 

excite the warmest human affection. In those 
nations of Europe Avhere the national feeling is the 
strongest the wisest philosophers have observed 
and deplored the absence of a local public spirit. 
But here the town has always been the object of 
love and pride. The people of Concord cared for 
its honor and dignity as for that of their own 
household. In the days which some of us can 
remember the advent of a stranger put the town 
on its hospitality. If Kossuth or Lafayette were 
coming here, or our famous anniversary were to 
bring throngs of strangers, every individual felt 
a personal responsibility. In the great pubhc 
charities for Greece, or for Ireland, or Hungary, 
or Kansas, Concord must not be suffered to be 
behind any other town, in proportion to her abilit}^ 
The morals and manners of the people were pure 
and clean. I do not remember that there has ever 
been a miu'der oi- a social scandal, and scarcely one 
of the greater crimes. There was little of austerity 
in the life of the people. The farmers led happy 
and honest lives. The ever-old, ever-new romance 
of life went on. Lovers wooed and maidens were 
won. Children were born, and old age passed to. 
the tomb. Our clergymen taught a rational and 
cheerful faith. Our fathers and mothers took into 
their own nature the peace of this beautiful land- 
scape of river and meadow, and put of their own 
nature into the landscape. 

Above all, while, like their fellow-men the round 
world over, they belonged to this world into which 
they were born, were no ascetics, took as they came 
the duties and the enjoyments and the trials of life. 



46 CONCORD CELEBRATION. 

they held to a very shicere rehgious faith in a 
supreme laAV of duty, and in a personal immortality^ 
They believed in a future life, which just men were 
to enjoy w^itli those they had loved here. The 
ehildi'en laid their parents to sleep as those who 
were to awaken again. The wife parted from her 
husband, expecting to see his foce after a time. 
The mother who lost her child believed that its 
tiny fingers should curl once more about her own. 
It was this hope's perpetual breath from which 
alone came to them, as to all healthy human 
society, Qxery gift of noblest origin. 

It is often said tkat these democracies, with their 
political and social dead level, may do very well for 
mankind in a condition of coarse and comfortable 
mediocrity. Men may eat and drink and die in 
them, with a certain gross phj^sical contentment. 
But for letters and art, for the greater and nobler 
quality of chivalry and genius, for the respect due 
to authority, especially for the beauty and orna- 
ment of noble and gracious manners, we must look 
elsewhere. You need a throne, the fountain of 
honoi', hereditary wealth, feeder of the arts which 
ennoble and beautify life, great old houses and 
family names, and old household gai'dens, for the 
rare plants of courtesy and high breeding to mature 
and blossom. Let us see. I think we need not 
altogether blush for our old Concord Avhcn these 
things are spoken of 

We shall perha})s find that the men who have 
come out from our farm-houses have been as ready 
for the great self-sacrifices of life; that country, 
hnnoi', duty, have had a meaning foi- them also. 



ADDRESS. 47 

as for any Plaiitagenet or Howard. But how is it 
in respect of courtesy and good manners, not now 
using the words in their largest and best sense of 
manifestation of true kindness, but as denotino- 
that beauty and grace of conduct and behavior 
that mark the gentleman and gentlewoman? I 
suppose perfect specimens of these manners are 
rare evei-ywhei-e. Everj^ generation speaks of 
them as gentlemen of the old school, each thereby 
confessing that it has not many of them to show 
of its own. How Avill the proportion of them here 
compare with that in other forms of society? I 
have been in my time a pretty diligent and hungry 
reader of the memoirs of Englislimen of rank and 
fame, illustrious in church or state, in law or let- 
ters. I confess I do not find many traces of such 
characters there. If English fiction, from Fielding 
and Smollett, down to Dickens and Thackeray and 
Trollope, di'aw a true portraiture, I should be sorry 
to have sent om- young farmers to leani the graces 
of life from the gentlemen they describe. 

There are many pei'sons in this audience who 
remember the simple and grave courtesy of Nathan 
Brooks. Your elders have not forgotten another 
Concord man, — him of whom Emerson said that, "if 
one had met him in a cabin or forest, he must still 
seem a public man, answering as sovereign state to 
sovereign state; and might easily suggest Milton's 
picture of John liradshaw, — that " he was a consul 
from whom the fasces did not depart with the year, 
but in private seemed ever sitting in judgment on 
kings;" and "that he retui'ued from courts or con- 
gresses to sit down, with unaltered humility, in the 



4S CONCORD CELEBRATION. 

church or in the town-house, on the plain wooden 
bench, where Honor came and sat down beside 
him." To meet Emerson himself was as if you 
had encountered one fresh I'rom the council of the 
Greek Olympus. These men were not accidents. 
They were representatives — the best representa- 
tives perhaps, but still representatives — of a people 
from which they and their ancestors sprang-, from 
which they derived their education, and in which 
they found example, guidance, and companionship. 
If it had been necessar}^ for our little democracy 
to establish its own relations with any throne or 
court, it would not have lacked ambassadors; and 
it would have had no occasion to be ashamed of 
them. 

For how many centuries has the world been 
moved to admiration and tears by the story of 
Sir Philip Sidney, the bright, consummate flower 
of English chivalry, who gave the cup of water, 
offered to his own dying lips to his dying comrade! 
It is the one story which bi'ings the age of chivalry 
home to the apprehension of mankind. Yet, cer- 
tainly, we should all of us have thought the action 
perfectly natural to George Prescott. 

Concord was among the very earliest towns to 
provide a liberal education in classics and mathe- 
matics both in public and private schools. Both 
sexes pursued these studies together, and certaiidy 
I'or all the time for which I can speak, the girls 
were at the head of the classes. When the United 
States Centennial Committee, in 187G, desired that 
the biograpiiy of a woman from each of the old thir- 
teen States should be written, to exhibit tiie highest 



A DDRESS. 49 

attainment of American womanhood for the first 
century of our national life, Sarah Ripley, a Con- 
cord woman by marriage and adoption, was selected 
as the representative of Massachusetts. She was 
one of the best scholars in the country in classics, in 
mathematics, in modern literature, English and 
Continental, and in natural history. She con- 
ducted some of her pupils through the entire col- 
lege curriculum. Mr. Everett said of her that 
she was qualified to fill any professor's chair at 
Harvard. Karely was a brighter or profounder 
intellect; never a sweeter or more gracious 
presence. 

Tell me, tell me, liave ye known 

Household charm more sweetly rare, 

Grace of woman ampler blown. 
Modest}' more debonair, 

Younger heart with wit iull grown? 

Native to famous wits, 

Or hospitable, in her sweet recess, 

Concord is known by her contribution to litera- 
ture wherever the English language is spoken. 
The battle-ground itself has added glor}^ in the 
eyes of the pilgrim, that it is hard by the home of 
Hawthorne. Our cemetery is not more hallowed 
by the sacred dust it preserves than by Mr. Chan- 
ning's ode for its dedication, fit to be ranked with 
Sir John Davies' Poem of the Soul. 

Rather to those ascents of being turn 
Where a ne'er setting sun ilhimes tiie year 

Eternal, and the incessant watch-fires burn 
Of unspent holiness and goodness clear. 

Thoreau found in our woods the ma-terial for his 
reports of the habits of all animate and inanimate 



\ 



50 CONCORD CELFAiRATION. 

nature, which are to those which science had given 
us before as the human character of a poet to the 
same man as described by an anatomist. Emerson, 
who held the loftiest place in literature of all men 
of his time, to whom Concord owes so mnch, would 
have been first to acknowledge his own debt to her. 
The biographer who would desci-ibe the "educa- 
tional and social influences which helped to mould 
his character," or the qualities of race he inherited, 
has first to understaud the character of Concord, 
and study the lives of generations of Concord men. 

Eminence in the fine arts, for obvious reasons, is 
not to be expected of a people situated as we were 
for our first two hundred years. But it is pleasant 
to hear that a young man, descended from that race 
of Puritan clergymen who have so honored the 
town in every generation, is taking high rank as a 
painter in Paris. When we see, standing by the 
North Bridge, one of the very few American 
statues that are alive, we are glad to remember 
that we had not to go abroad for the sculptor, and 
to think that Concord has given proof that the 
genius of American Democracy is not incapable of 
adding this ornament and beauty also to the State. 

In speaking of the town as a separate munici[)al 
and social life we do not forget that it is but a 
part of a larger life, in which it lives, and moves, 
and has its being. The Commonwealth and the 
country surround us like the air. What would be 
left of Concord, if, inhabited by the same men, and 
with all physical conditions unchanged, she had 
been other than a Massa(;husetts town, is haixler to 
answer than Sir Thomas Browne's famous ques- 



ADDRESS. 51 

tion, — "What song- the sirens sang." But she 
has given as well as received. Certainly she has 
not failed in her contribution to the glory of Mas- 
sachusetts in every generation. When it was the 
glor}^ of JMassachusetts to redeem the continent 
from the savage, and to found an empire, the men 
of Concord led the way into the forest. AVhen it 
was the glory of Massachusetts to lead in winning- 
American libert}'^ from the power of England, it 
was a Concord voice that gave the word. W^hen 
it was the glory of Massachusetts to give to man- 
kind the example of a model self-governing com- 
monwealth in peace, Concord was a model town. 
When it was the glory of Massachusetts to adorn 
herself with her garland of men of genius, poets, 
philosophers, orators, Concord furnished the 
brightest flowers in that wreath. 

But the test was still to come which should de- 
termine whether eighty years of peace, whether 
church and common school, and town meeting 
could train the youth of Concord in the comfort 
and luxury of modei'n homes to a heroism like 
that which grew up of old in the forest and in the 
Indian war. On the 19th of April, 1861, on the 
old historic day, the first Concord soldiers left 
home for the defence of Washington. The town 
had already taken an influential part in inaugu- 
rating the great political revolution which achieved 
the freedom of the slave. When the party was 
formed iu 1848 to prevent the extension of slavery 
into the territories, the call issued from Concord ; a 
Concord man presided at its first State convention, 
and, bv a singular coincidence, natives of Concord 



52 CONCORD CELEBRATION. 

presided at its first great meetings in Lowell and 
in Worcester, and took a leading part in that in 
Boston. 

The soldiers of Concord went to the war fully 
understanding its issnes. They knew what they 
were fighting for. The spirit of Capt. Charles 
Miles of the Revolution, who was wounded in the 
pursuit of the British, who told Dr. Ripley "that 
he Avent to the services of that day with the same 
seriousness and acknowledgment of God that he 
cairied to church," was still the spirit of the later 
o-eneration. What one of them said of their brave 

o 

Col. Pi-escott was true, as a general description, 
of all: "A more moral man, or oue more likely 
to enter the kingdom of heaven, cannot be found 
in the army of the Potomac. He did not fight for 
glory, honor, or money, but because he thought it 
his duty." 

I have not the time to enter upon the detail of 
that honorable and pathetic history. It is not 
necessary. As a son of Concord, there is nothing 
I could desire to have added to the complete and 
noble eloquence which expressed her gratitude to 
her soldiers in the recent war when the soldiers' 
monuuient Avas dedicated. The citizens Avho then 
uttered the voice of the toAvn Avere careful to 
disclaim any peculiarity or monopoly of merit. 
The toAvn furnished more than her quota of 
men, her full })roportion of all other contribu- 
tions, and her spirit never flinched or quailed 
till the Avar Avas over. There is no record of dis- 
honor. If the people CA^eryAvhere did as Avell, her 
comfort and contentment, her pride and glory, her 



ADDRESS. 53 

joy and reward, must be found in the foct that she 
was one of the earUest examples of that democracy 
which at last raised a whole people to that " demo- 
cratic dead level," aye! rather to that living level, 
that lofty table-land of patriotism and virtue. 

The secret of the history of Concord has been 
the connection of her genei'ations with each other. 
Each has held by the hand of that which went 
before it, needing no better examples, seeking no 
better teachers. The spirit of the fathers has 
descended to the children. The youth of 1861 felt 
the electric thrill from the men of 1635 and the 
men of the Revolution. 

Our own generation Avill soon join those whose 
deeds we affectionately celebrate, and this as- 
sembly sleej) by the side of the congregations who 
listened to the Bulkeleys, to Bliss, to Emerson, 
or to Ripley. The hospitable soil which has re- 
ceived the dust of our fathei's is ready to open 
for us also. We shall account it one of the chief 
blessings and privileges of existence — better than 
wealth, better than noble or royal blood — to have 
had such men for our ancestors, our kindred, our 
neighbors and townsmen; — to have been part of 
this pure and beautiful life, sprung from the mar- 
riage, in these forest glades, of the spirit of religion 
and the spirit of liberty. 

It is in no temper of vainglory that we would 
remember our fathers. It is rather as feeling, 
and as handing down to our children, a great bur- 
den, demanding, when occasions come, great and 
strenuous exertions of sacrifice and duty. 

Farthest possible from vanity and false pride is 



54 CONCORD CELEBRATION. 

that temper which the Greek ascribed to his people 
"^ who thought themselves worthy of great things, 
being in truth worthy/' If our children are to 
sustain the great burdens of freedom and self- 
government in their turn without dishonor, they 
will be helped and strengthened as they remember 
that they are of the blood of the invincible men of 
old. 

It may be that the separate municipal and social 
life which has given this town her character and 
historv is about to come to an end : that this little 
river is about to lose itself in the sea; that the 
neighboring city will overflow her borders, or that 
railroad and telegraph and telephone will mingle 
her elements inexti"icably with the great mass of 
American life. I do not believe it. I think the 
town will preserve for a long and indefinite future 
her ancient and distinct quality. But however 
this shall be, the lives of our fathers will not be 
lost. The tOAvn will have made her impression 
upon America herself Among the memorable fig- 
ures in history shall be that of dear, wise, brave, 
tendei', gentle old Concord, — she who broke the 
path into the forest, — she who delivered hei* l)i'ave 
blow between the eyes of England, — she by whose 
fireside the rich and the poor sat together as equals^ 
— she whose children made her famous by elo- 
quence, by sculpture, and by song. 



THE DINNER. 55 

The f]xei-ci8es ended by the audience singing "America," 
in full clionis. 

The procession then re-formed — the several organizations 
having partaken of a collation in the Court House while the ad- 
dresses were made in the hail — and marched to the Agricultural 
Building on the Fair Grounds. 



The Dinner, 

provided by T. D. Cook of Boston, was served in the upper 
hall that accommodated over six hundred persons at the tables. 
These were arranged across the hall with the platform in the 
centre facing the length of the tables, eighteen in number. At 
the head of each table a member of the Committee sat acting 
as a Vice President. 

On the platform at the right of the Presiclent were seated 
Governor Robinson, Senator Hoar, Cliaplain Bulkeley, George 
William Curtis, Edward W. Emerson, Hapgood Wright and 
Rev. H. M. Grout. On the left Hens. James Russell Lowell, 
E. R. Hoar, William M. Evarts, George M. Brooks, Rev. 
George H. Hosmer, Samuel Hoar and Henry J. Hosmlr. 

The time taken in seating the large number of ticket hold- 
ers, many of them ladies, was well occupied in viewing the elab- 
orate decorations of the dining hall. These were arranged un- 
der the diiection of Daniel C. French, the artist of the Minute 
Man, and were rare and beautiful. The west window, through 
which the afternoon sun biought out vividly a striking figure of 
the first settler Simon Willard in his quaint puritan costume, was 
so well executed that it was hard to believe it was not stained 
glass. Shields bearing names held in high honor in the town, 
Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Hoar, Buttrick, Prescott, 
Ripley, Bulkeley were interspersed among the flags and ban- 
ners along the walls. Over the speakers was an artistic design 
appropriate to the occasion, and allegorical of the siages of 
developement of the town's histor3^ Through the open windows 
spread out the hills and meadows along the river, glowing with 
autumnal color, making within and without "a fair prospect." 

At hall-past two P. M., the Chief JMarshal rapped for 
silence, when the Chaplain asked a blessing. Then a half hour 
was devoted to an appetizing dinner, and after the coffee was 
served and the waiteis bad left the hall, the President of the 
Day said : 



56 CONCORD CELEBBATION. 

Concordians, neighbors, friejidx : 

It is my pleasant duty to invite your attention to this rare feast 
of rich eloquence you see spread before you, and like Shakespeaie's 
receipt for rare cooking "If 'twere done, when 'tis done, then 
'twere well it were done quickly," not to detain you by any words 
of mine. Excejit to say (privately in your ear) that if in the excite- 
ment of such an occasion, there should slip out inadvertently a word 
not quite consistent with the well-known modesty and humility so 
characteristic of Concord, you will pardon it and receive it in a Pick- 
wickian sense, and not as sober earnest. 

Of course this morning at that public gathering we were on par- 
ade, and that was something 'entirely different' from this family din- 
ner. The Orator of the Day told us such a flattering tale that if we 
were not plain, common-sense folk, we might be set up with our im- 
portance, and imagine that Concord was the "hub," that New 



that 

and believe 



"England liarbored uot her peer." 

"The spacious North 
Exists to draw her virtues forth." 

"Thy summer voice Musbetaquid 
Repeats the music of the raiu. 
They lose their grief who hear his song, 
And where be winds is the day of days." 

But this is poetry. The prose fact is that we are, 

"Content with these poor fields, 
Low, open meads, slender and sluggish streams. 
And found a home in haunts whicli others scorned. 
Beneath low hills, in the broad interval 
Here iu pine houses built . • . the farmers dwell. 
Traveller to thee, perchance, a tedious road, 
Or, it may be, a picture." 
and we are 

"Xot vain, sour, or frivolous, 

Not mad, athirst, or garrulous. 

Grave, chaste, contented though retired." 

Introducing the Governor, the presiding officer said: 

To-day Concord proposes to be worthy of her name. All is to be 
'peace and good will.' Forgetting her old rivalry with Lexington, 
she greets the Governor of,the State, although he was born there, uot 
here. Yet, as his mother was a Concord Lady, and he is not respon- 
sible for the place of his birth, we claim our share of him. As the 
descendant of Dolor Davis, oue of our first settlers, and the ancestor 
of three Governors of Massachusetts, John Davis, John Davis Long, 
and our guest, the present chief magistrate of the commouwealth, 
whom I now present to you as most worthy of his line of ancestors 
and piedecessors. His Excellency, 

GEORGE DEXTER ROBINSON. 



Governor Robinson's Speech. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Descendants of Old 
Concord : There was no strife or rivalry between the people of 
Concord and Lexington when danger was in the front. And 
never was the question raised as to priority of honor until the 
people were born who shouldered no musket in 1775. There 
is glory enough for all and each. When we come into the 
presence of advanced 3^ears, we bow our heads in great respect, 
taking up the lesson that comes out of a long and marked life. 
So we stand here to-day in the presence of two hundred and 
fifty years drawn up to the present hour in the results that are 
impressed upon our appreciation now. How happ^* a thing it 
is, and how much of a relief to one who is charged with saying 
a few words, that he can come here now and recognize real age. 
The Governor has oftimes to meet with towns that are onl}' one 
hundred years old. It is pleasant, too, when we reflect that our 
fathers must have foreseen into the future much farther than 
we had ever given them credit for. What but the great wisdom 
that planted the township here in 1635, what but that rare wis- 
dom that penetrated what seemed to be beyond human ken, 
could have been so considerate as to have caused Governor 
Hayues and the general court in 1635 to incorporate this town 
right in the month of September, when over nature's fields, the 
tints are painted on the autumnal leaf and the rich crops are 
ready to drop into the hands of the husband-man ? How beauti- 
ful it was that they have foreseen (surely we will all believe it 
to-day) this beautif ul-beyond-description weather that entrances 
us and delights us all ! And they knew that two hundred and 
fifty years hence we should sit down under this glorious sun 
and clear sky, and think of their bright and glorious deeds. 
And it is, too, pleasant that they foresaw it in this year, 1635, 
it may be (at any rate we will hope so) this time, when, for 
some reason that shall be here and now unexplainable, the 
commonwealth should have a chief magistrate who should stand 
upon this platform to speak for her, in whose veins should flow 
a joint current of blood from Lexington and Concord, uniting 
in one grand force the power of patriotic devotion to America. 

It is always a pleasure to respond, Mr. President, to the 
courtesies of such an occasion as this ; to accept the greeting 



58 CONCOED CELEBRATION. 

which is extended to our good old State that we love so well. 
Wherever the people congregate to consider 

THE ANCIENT SETTLEMENT 

of our ancient municipalities, wherever from far and near they 
gather to talk over the associations of home, to look down into 
each otliers eyes and souls and see all the past, the riches that 
are in human nature, wherever they come together and deal 
with those things that lie up nearest and dearest to all, there, 
surely is the vital spirit of our commonwealth ever present, 
finding the best expression of her freedom and her life. It is 
like our good old New England festival, celebrated annually in 
every home circle, bringing the child and the parent, kith and 
kin together, as they live over what is so much a treasure. 
No one, except he were of Concord origin, could measure the 
satisfiiction and the feeling that have filled me yesterday and 
to-da3\ The old streets, the old cemetery, the inscriptions 
upon the tombstones, the faces here and now, the lineaments 
that stand out before me, telling of ancestors that I knew a few 
years ago, all these come up to intensify my delight and to 
strengthen my impressions. Indeed, my recollection takes me 
back (I dare to say it) upvvai'ds of forty years, when as a boy, I 
knew the ways, and the hills and the vales, and the streams of 
this town. I was associated with many that have remained 
here and otl)ers tliat are gone, and I knew all the choice, and 
sweet, and sacred spots. The old river was not unfamiliar. I 
wandered up and down its banks many a time, and, judging by 
results, I can assure you that the same fisli swim there to-day 
that were there on those occasions, for I never had any success 
at all in tempting them to yield to my offerings. 

The earliest settlers, we must believe could not have fully 
anticipated what has resulted. They worked with the highest 
ideal in view, but we can hardly fanc}' that the men who 
founded this town in 1635 saw with unerring certainty that 
would fall here the signal distinction that came in 1775. Patri- 
otism was not confined to this town. It spread everywhere. 

There were other hills, and other rivers, and other bridges, 
and other ways; and none but divine knowledge could have 
known that it would come hei-e by this stream, in this town of 
Concord. It is not the old North l)ridge that makes this town 
of Concord justly famous. Down through the Locriau moun- 



TBE G O VERNOIt' S SPEECB. 59 

tains ran the defile of ThermopyLie. It would have remained 
unknown in history, without even a mention of recognition had 
not three hundred brave souls gone down there for Lacedsemon's 
cause. Bridges everywhere, streams numerous, the North bridge 
not signiticant, but the manhood that stood on the bridge and 
stemmed the tide of British aggression and turned back the 
onset in victor}' was peculiar to that time. The old bridge has 
disappeared to us; tlie traveller sees it no more. Tie loves to 
know that its planks have passed into the foundation work of 
the platform in. the town hall. He knows that the shot was 
heard round the world. But more ; the impulse went every- 
where, and wherever the oppressed recognized it, there came 
confidence and courage and encouragement. Our independence 
was surely not the work of a year or of a decade. The work, 
the process, commenced with the first settlement. More than a 
century passed while this movement was proceeding to its" un- 
erring result. The church, the schoolhouse, the town meeting 
were educating the people to know, not only that it was their 
right to be free, but were inspiring them with the heroism that 
would dare, in the future, to declare that independence. So 
surely, under God's providence, was the power implanted in 
the people that sliould strike down oppression. Said the great 
inventor Stephenson, to the dean of Westminster, "What 
impels that locomotive engine?" "Why, sir, steam of course." 
"No," said Stephenson, "It is the sunbeam (Tod sent into the 
flowers." The great drama was prepared and rehearsed in 
Concord from 163.5 to 1775, and then the first act was opened 
here in the presence and with tlie knowledge of the civilized 
world, and the curtain was not rung down at the close until 
Yorktowu came and America was free forever. 

Standing here to-day, we may look with trembling and 
anxiety in our imaginings of what the futuie shall be. We 
can safely trust the past. We know that in the early days 
Congress sat here, choosing John Hancock to the presidency. 
We do not fail to remember that Harvard College for a time 
found itsJiome in this town. And though it may be that in 
the later years Harvard has gone to her permanent establish- 
ment in the city where she was first located, > yet, wherever 
literature, and science, and st-itemanship, and poetry, and ro- 
mance, and philosophy are considered, there shall be told 



60 CONCOltB CELEBRATION. 

THE NAME OF CONCORD. 

And though Congress comes no longer here, Concord's sons are 
in the great Congress of the nation, expressing her intelligence 
and her power. If it be so in the future, we need have no 
anxiety or apprehension for what shall come. 

"We can bear to the future, 

No greater than to us the past liath brought; 

Faith to the lowliest duty, 

Truth to the loftiest thought." 

And as we look back only a few years — as we look back to 
the work that was done from 18G1 to 1885, when we see that 
Concord blood and Concord courage and Concord patriotism 
failed not then in the nation's emergency, we know that, what- 
ever may betide, so long as the schoolhouse, the church, and 
religion and integrity shall stand, there shall yet be a Grand 
Arm}^ of the Republic that will take care that the nation shall 
live. 

Now, the strength of this community, in my judgment, 
has resided in the strength of the people individually. There 
is the secret of power. And this town is strong, because it 
maintains with jealous care its original methods and wa3'S. 
Honesty in public affairs, decency in public and private life, 
good, open hearted manhood and womanhood are not out of 
fashion in Concord. And so long as you keep those powers in 
the majority, so long the influence that shall go out from here 
will be immeasurable. Concord will retain the greater strength 
the longer she remains a town. It may be fashionable to court 
the ways and methods of a city, but, bear with me, the true, 
underlying principle that holds our government firmly is self- 
control, and there is no better dt^mocrac}' under God's sun than 
that found in the New England town meeting, where each man 
meets his fellow, exchanges liis thoughts, and puts his voice and 
his vote on the side with his judgment. Knowing that j^ou are 
all far advanced in years to-day, and that you tire more easily 
than you would have two hundred and fifty years ago, I must for- 
bear to vex your ears and weary your patience longer. There are 
gentlemen that have not only entranced America, but the whole 
world. We welcome them here — you, Mr. President, onl}- for 
Concord — I, for Massachusetts, and I speak out of the impulse 



JUi>GE HOAB'S EEMAttKS. 61 

of the generosit}?^, not only of two towns that I always carry 
with me but the whole commonwealth that for the time being is 
intrusted to my care. Though we will not be at the next 
quarter-millenium we may, ])erhaps, keep our influence strong, 
so tlmt the town shall be here, and so that the state may then 
come up here with as just pride as she comes now to give the 
happiest greetirjg and to express satisfaction at the accomplish- 
ments of the past. 

The President : 

There is one presence here, without which no Concord celebra- 
tion could be complete. He has carried this town on his shoulders 
for more than a generation. He has honored it, and every station to 
which he has been called, — at the bar, ou the bench, in Congress, in 
the Cabinet and in the diplomatic commission. At home his influ- 
ence has been such that it has been irreverently said, that when he 
snuffed all Concord sneezed. Be tliat as it may, when he speaks all 
Concord^ delights to listen. Perhaps he will tell us something he re- 
members of our second Centennial, fifty years ago, our Judge, 
EBENEZER KOCKWOOD HOAR. 



Judge Hoar's Remarks, 

Mr. President, such an introduction is unkind of you, but 
I will not allow any feeling of unkindness to enter my mind 
upon this occasion. I think it is undoubtedly true that most 
of the Concord people present would have a little doubt of the 
identity of the town, on any public occasion, if they did not 
have a little dreary talk from me. To-day I have neither of the 
(jualities which make a public speaker. The first qualit}' of a 
public speaker is legs, and mine are sadly deficient. The 
other is that he shall have something to say, and in that I am 
totally deficient, except that the President has expressed a 
wish that I should say something to you about our second Cen- 
tennial, and with that wish I will endeavor to comply. I was 
present at the celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the 
settlement of the town. I had recently graduated from college 
and was remaining in Concord, a week, to attend that celebra- 
tion, before I should enter upon my life's work by commencing 
it as a school-master in western Pennsylvania. I remember very 
distinctl}^ all that occurred then, and the Concord that was then 



6S CONCORD CELEBRATION. 

here. I belong, I think, in some degree, to the Concord of the 
minister and the meeting house, the Concord all of whose citi- 
zens were of the same race and generally of the same way of 
thinking, except as their judgments miglit differ at times on 
public questions ; and there has been a very great change since 
that time. I am inclined to think, however, with the Orator of 
the Day, that the digestion of Concord is equal to the meal 
which has been laid before it. 

There have been two great influences at work upon oiir 
town during the last fifty years. One is the railroad. This 
influence has been not only that which the enterprise itself has 
exerted upon the town, but it has also been felt in the persons 
of the poor men who came here to aid in the construction of 
the railroad, who were obliged to work at starvation wages, 
and who were received with sucli an unbounded hospitality and 
compassion by our people, that great numbers of them were 
induced to settle here. It is probable that our population now 
includes 1000 or 1500 of that race, who by reason of the edu- 
cation received in our common schools and through the asso- 
ciations existing between them and tlie old inhabitants, are fast 
becoming valuable members of our community. 

That railroad had another effect. It made Concord nearer 
to Boston. Well, that to some extent, might be considered an 
advantage, because it afforded people a rather more rapid 
means of reaching here than they had before enjoyed. But it 
had the tendency to attract to our town persons who merely 
came here as to a pleasant place in which to live, — whose con- 
cerns were elsewhere, and whose amusements, associations, and 
friends, were very largely in the city. I do not think that was 
an advantage to Concord and it is one of the tilings we need to 
consider. 

The Concord that I knew in my boyhood was an extremely 
self-respectin;/ community, We thought that it would do just 
as much good to the people oC the city, or of anywhere else, to 
know what we thought, as for us to know what they thought- 
And, as I rem<'mber the collection of our substantial citizens, 
at the post ofllce in the morning, and their comment and con- 
versation on }iul)lic affairs, I liiid that trait very conspicuously 
present, as it had been all through the town's histor}'. I re- 
member an excellent Democratic selectman of this town, who 



JUDGE HOAR'S REMARKS. 6S 

went to Washington for the first time, and who had great re- 
spect for the country and its government and the members of 
Congress. He also had some respect for himself, and was ac- 
customed to be treated with respect by others. When he returned 
from Washington, he said he was shocked with the actions of 
the members of Congress. "Vv^hy," said he "they came into 
the hotel where I put up, the}^ went up to the bar, they drank 
and they sioore right before >//e." Now that is a thorough spe- 
cimen of a Concord quality which I value, and which I should 
like to preserve and perpetuate. 

I hope that we are not going to become a suburb of the 
city. We should remember that our part in the state is as im- 
portant as any other. In the presence of others, our opinions 
should l)e expressed with modesty, and caution, and reflection 
but still we are entitled to be heard. 

The other great influence which has been exerted upon 
this town during the last fifty years, is, in my judgment, the 
presence of Mr. Emerson as a resident in it. Yet, while we 
know that his presence has been the education of the town, 
while we know that he has been the inspirer of the town on all 
occasions no less than his grandfather, who saw the fight from 
the North Bridge, while we know that in every struggle for 
freedom, for education, or for any other good cause he has 
always been found in the front of the battle as our leader, — 
still, that has not been without its disadvantages ; for I think 
the presence of Mr. Emerson has not l)een wholly serviceable, 
as perhaps no good gift of God ever is. He brought, and his 
fame has tended somewhat to bring to our town what has l)een 
called his "menagerie ;" andt o a (|uiet Concord person of the 
plain old-fashioned t3'pe, the presence, frecjuently grotesque, is 
not always absolutely admirable. Undoubtedly Mr. Emerson, 
who was one of our most hospitable citizens and one of the 
most attractive of men, has brought here many worthy and ex- 
cellent persons who shared his spirit and his purpose. But 
also we have had all manner of imitators ; and occasionally a 
Concord person, when he is away from home hears scoffing 
remarks made by people who do not consider that we are re- 
sponsible for neither the Reformatory at one en.d of the town, 
nor for all the attendants at the School of Philosophy at the 
other. 



64 CONCORD CELEBBATION. 

I am going to mention two things which I think are credit- 
able to the town and the benefit of which 1 like to extend to 
our neighbors whenever possible ; and I think of tliem, l)ecause 
we are entitled to do so with-complacency. 

One thing, is the example which Concord has set to other 
towns, — and to the cities, — as regards the non-partisan admin- 
istration of town affairs. I think we are partly indebted to tiie 
anti-slavery movement for this. There was in this town, in 
1848, while the old Whig and Democratic part^' existed, the 
Free-Soil movement, which was composed of a part of each of 
the!?e other parties ; and the three parties were frequently about 
e(iually balanced in the town. The lesult was, that we set 
about having no political division in regard to our town affairs ; 
and from 1848 up to the present time, — whde before that date, 
we used to have just as hard a contest in the election of a 
selectman as we would were we electing a president of the 
United States, and about as bitter a one sometimes, — we have 
not had any division, and have elected our town officers quietly 
takin"" the best of our citizens for them that we could get to 
serve, and always taking care to hti\ e the minority represented 
as far as they had any political duties. I think that this is 
something which tlie cities and any other towns that have not 
done the same thing should do. I hope a great many Massa- 
chusetts towns have done so. 

Then there is one other debt w hich the couutiy owes to 
Concord, which is entitled to recognition, and which is of a 
practical character. There are two bunches of Concord grapes. 
(Exhil)iting the bunches.) That is what it can do when it tries 
(exhibiting a very handsome bunch) and very abundantly it 
does when it goes into other parts of the country. That grape 
was originated by the experiments of a citizen of Concord, Mr. 
Bull, and it lias extended from Nortii Caroliua to the Pacific, 
all over the noithern section of tlu^. country, and a friend of 
mine found it on the table of a hotel in uorthern Italy where 
the phyllnxera had spoiled tlie native grape. Tlie Concord 
grape, is perhaps the greatest liorticultural benefit that has 
been conferred on the country during these fifty years. Having 
shown you the grape as it ought to l)e seen, and as it appears 
when it tries what it can do, I will say that there are a couple 
of bunches (exhibiting a smaller specimen than the last) which 



3f7? LOWELL'S SPEECH. 65 

grew on the original vine, which still stands in bearing condi- 
tion, though in bad shape, owing to the fact that so many cut- 
tings have been made from it for propagation. 

I think that our people have kept quietly about their busi- 
ness, liave endeavored to make the world better, and are to be 
commended for that: and it shocks our modesty to be com- 
mended for anything else than good intentions and a faithful 
performance of what we can find to do. 

The President : 

Poeta nancUur nonjit. But if ever there was a fit, it was when 
our genuine Yankee poet went ambassador to England. More than a 
century ago, there was an unpleasantness here with some English- 
men, some traditions and memorials of which still exist in our vil- 
lage. The memory of this was so strong in my boyhood, that when a 
military company in scarlet uniform came to this town on a tour of 
duty, the leading citizens held a conference to secure them from in- 
sult, so great was the feeling of hatred at the sight of a red coat. 
We have got over all that now, especially since we got so much the 
better of the English through our minister to London, who could teach 
them their own literature, who could eulogize their own poets and 
more eloquently use their own language, and who accomplished what 
we all hope and what I think we shall find to be the case; namely that 
the Puritan came out ahead to-day and always. 

We congratulate that gentleman, our guest, on his successful 
mission, and we fondly hope that in his great renown he will spare 
us a little leaf of his laurels, in memory of his youthful residence and 
of Concord Bridge and John Bull's run. Indeed, we almost dare to 
think his victory over England was in part owing to his early reading 
and fine rendering of the old fight — that he knew 

"Whut earthqTiake rifts would shoot and run 
AVorld-wide from that short A[iril fray." 

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 



Mr. Lowell's Speech. 

Mr. President, your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen: — 

Although Governor Robinson supposed so much of fore- 
sight in the men of 1635 as to have credited them with foresee- 
ing us sitting here at these tables, yet had they done so, they 
would never have foreseen me making a speech hei'e on this 
occasion ; for I came over here under a misapprehension. 1 was 



66 CONCORD CELEBRATION. 

misled by my dear old friend on my left (turning to Judge 
Hoar) into the supposition that nothing would be expected of 
me. He now tells me that what he meant was, that I should 
not be expected to deliver a poem, as if I kept poetry always on 
tap. If I had known what was expected of nie, if I had known 
that there would be so much eloquence in addition to the ad- 
mirable oration we liave heard this morning, I should have 
come with a pocket-full of impromptus; but as it is, you wili 
get rid of me sooner than yon might otherwise have reasonably 
expected. 

I am reminded in rising hereof an adventure which connects 
me with the town of Concord ; for being neither a Lexington 
nor a Concord man, I am in some doubt under what title I ap- 
pear here to-day. I am not an adopted son of Concord. I 
cannot call myself that. But 1 cai: say, perhaps, thai under 
the old fashion which still existed when I was young, I was 
"'bound out" to Concord for a period of time ; and I must say 
that she treated me very kindly. In other words, I was, during 
a period of my senior year in college, forty-seven years ago, 
rusticated in Concord. I look back upon it as one of the most 
fortunate events of my life. I am quite serious in saying so. 
I then, for the first time, made the acquaintance of Mr. Emer- 
son, of whom Judge Hoar has so fitly spoken ; and I still recall 
with a kind of pathos, as Dante did that of his old teacher 
Brunetto Latini, "La cara e buona imagine paterna," "The dear 
and good paternal image," which he showed me here ; and I can 
also finish the (juotation and say "And shows me how man 
makes himself eternal." I remember he was so kind to me — I, 
rather a fiight}' and exceedingly youthful boy, — as to take 
me with him on some of his walks, particularly a walk to the 
Cliffs which I shall never forget. And perhaps this feeling of 
gratitude which I have to Concord gives me some sort of claim 
to appear here to-day. 

But I can easily find another one. Although the orator 
dwelt to-day in perfectly fitting terms on the deliberate courage 
of the men who marched down to the Bridge, and although I 
was i»articularly struck with what he said of one of them, — 
that is, that he said that he went into battle as he went h> 
(•hurch, — I could not help thinking of the motto of our State, 
which, omitting the minatoiT half of the quotation, shows that 



MR. LOWELL'S SPEECH. 67 

our ancestors ni.ide war onh^ (considering war in itself n bad 
thing) to attain a specific oliject, and, that that object attained, 
were willing to sit down under their own grape and fig tree: 
and finer grapes, 1 may say, have never been grown. You re- 
member the motto, "Ense petit placidam sub libertate ijuietem." 
rt is familiar to you all. But it has always struck me that 
they omitted the "Manus hcec iuimica tyrannis," which consti- 
tutes the threat. Although the men who went down to that 
bridge that morning, as Mr. Hoar told us to-day, went there, as 
he thinks, with a more far reaching purpose in their minds and 
with more jireparation than some of us would be willing to 
allow, yet certainly the results that flowed from that day were 
more momentous than anybody could have expected. What 
was said by one of the chiefs on that day (I believe it is dis- 
puted which), "that no man has a right to stop us from march- 
ing across our own bridge," I think is as good a declaration of 
independence as I ever heard; but whether the men who marched 
on to that bridge knew where it was leading them, I think is 
questionable. It was over that bridge that the town meeting, 
that democracy, in short, in its purest and most beautiful form, 
marched on to the field of cosmopolitan polities. Ttwas a most 
eventful day. 

But one title I have, perhaps, for saying a few words to 
you to-day ; and that is, the connection which Concord has with 
literature no less than it has with political history. I do not 
believe it ever happened to any other town so small as this to 
have living in it as contemporaries three such men as Emerson, 
Hawthorne, and Thoreau. It is a most remarkable fact. And 
if the first shot fired here at Concord was the first one of the 
struggle for political independence, so the first of those three 
men, more than any other, more than all others put together, 
wrought our intellectual independencie. With him we may truly 
be said to have first ceased to be provincial. This was a wonderful 
achievement for one man. Then the second, Hawthorne. You 
would think me extravagant, I fear, if I said how highly I rate 
the genius of Hawthorne in the histoiy of literature. But at 
any rate, Hawthorne taught us one great and needful lesson ; 
and that is, that our own past was an ample storehouse for the 
highest works of imagination or fancy. That also, was a very 
great gain. And I think that we are indebted to Mr. Thoreau, 



68 CONCORD CELEBRATION. 

the third of the three, for another lesson, ahnost as important ; 
and that is, that Nature is as friendly, as inspiring here as in 
Wordsworth's country, or anywhere else. We owe, therefore, 
a very great debt, as it' seems to me to these three men. And 
if we have stars enough, which I think perhaps is doubtful, for 
so great a constellation as that of Orion, I cannot help fancying 
to myself these three as those eminent stars in his bt-lt. I was 
going to tell you when I was led off on another track, that, in 
rising to-day, I coidd not help being reminded of one of my 
adventures with my excellent tutor when 1 was here in Concord. 
I was obliged to read with him ''Locke on the Human Ihider- 
standing." My tutor was a great admirer of Locke, and thought 
that he was the greatest Englishman that ever lived, and nothing 
()leased him more, consequently, than now and then to cross 
swords with Locke in argument. I was not slow, you may 
imagine, to encourage him in this laudable enterprise. When- 
ever a question arose between my tutor and Locke, I always 
took Locke's side. I remember on one occasion, although I 
cannot now recall the exact passage in Locke, — it was some- 
thing about continuity of ideas, — my excellent tutor told me 
that in that case Locke was quite mistaken in his views. My 
tutor said, "For instance Locke sa3'^s that the mind is never 
without an idea ; now I am conscious frequently that m}' mind 
is entirely without any idea at all." And I must confess that 
that anecdote came vivicll}' to my mind when I got up on what 
Judge Hoar has justly characterized as the most imj)ortant part 
of an orator's person. 

I am glad to be here for one other reason, which you will 
allow me to suggest before I sit down ; and that is, because it 
is good to come back here and re-temper one's self in this pure 
spring of American democracy. F find it, — I won't say a very 
good tonic, for I didn't need its tonic, — but I have found it 
exceedingly lefreshing and exceedingly encouraging, I must 
say, for all tlu' world, as well as for us. I am glad to l)e here 
to-day, also for another reason still ; and that is, that I most 
heartily approve of every occnsioii which tends to keep united 
that thread of historic continuity, which is as important among 
nations as it is among families. I think what Senator Hoar 
said this morning, about Concord having a character and phy- 
siognomy of its own, is emineutl) true; and it is of the highest 



DR. GROUT* S ADDRESS. 69 

importance that the traditions of such a character and pliysiog- 
nomy should be maintained. For, if noblesse oblige., certain it 
is that a town which has done great things or a family that has 
done gre.it things will be more likely to- do great things or to 
produce men that will do them in the future. Therefore, I am 
very glad to be here to-day on such an occasion as tlds which 
renews and keeps alive the memory of Concord's historic past. 
For, if the scientific men are right (and I think that more and 
more peo])le are inclined to agree with them as the years go on), 
the past of a man or of a family, or of a nation is of vastly 
moi'e importance ihan was formerly supposed, — it is of much 
moi'e importance, perhaps, than the present, and certain!}' is the 
indicator of tlie controlling force, if not the controlling force 
itself, which will shape their future. 1 am much obliged to yon, 
Mr. President, for the kind words which you were good enough 
to appl}^ to me, and thank you all for having listened to me 
longer than I expected I should s])eak when I rose. 

The President ; 

It was stated before a committee of the last Legislature that in 
Concord all the best people stayed away from chmch. Tins is a 
modern invention and would have surprised our Fathers even more 
than telegraphs or telephones. They kept up the union of the town 
and parish, church and state, for almost two centuries, until about 
fifty years ago, a second parish was formed here, and now we have 
five or six chuiclies; pretty well for a ftoft-church-going town. Perhaps 
our oldest settled minister will tell us how it is in the chui'ches. 

The Reverend Doctor HENRY MARTY.M GROUT. 



Dr. Grout's Address, 

Mr. President: 

Your call upon the oldest settled minister in the town must 
l)e on account of his extreme age. You have probably assumed 
that the memory of so old a man would run further back toward 
the beginnings of things than that of his youthful brethren 
here. But you will be patient with liim, I trust, if, bearing in 
mind the tendency of time to impair this faculty, he should 
venture to rely only in part upon personal recollections of the 
far off first days. 



70 CONCOBD CELEBRATION, 

vSoberly speaking, however, I ara most hai)py, if ray voice 
is to be hearcl at all on tliis occasion, that I am ])ermitted to 
speak some words respecting tlio town and the church. It was 
the church in one of its branches, which brought me to the town. 
Further, it has a warm place in my henrt. I believe in it — as 
I suspect the best people all still do. My words concerning it 
could not be otherwise than sincere. And as these other more 
distinguished gentlemen furnish ample wit for the hour, you 
will expect me to fill in the solemn discourse. 

Permit me then, Mr. President, to begin with claiming for 
the church a considerable credit for this celebration itself. For 
you have no doubt meditated upon the fact that, but for it, 
there would have been no Concord to keep this grateful anni- 
versary. Was it not the visiou of a church, and of such a 
church as they came to plant, which brought the founders of 
our town hither? Was it not this which sustained them in the 
hardships of the first years? New England history has made 
this very plain. The reason they themselves gave for coming to 
these shores was ''the great hope and inward zeal the}' had of 
laying some good foundation foi- propagating and advancing 
the kingdom of Christ in these remote parts of the world." 
This was their motive. This was their purpose. Other parts 
of this western world were colonized by adventurers, who came 
for conquest and ])lunder, for empire ond spoil. The fathers, 
who came hither, were of a different mould. They came from 
a religious impulse. Is it not clear that Init for the church, 
this goodly town would never have been? We should not hav'e 
been here. And so the wit and wisdom and rejoicings of this 
occasion would have been lost. You see I begin with a very 
large claim: it is one. however, which yon will no doubt be 
happy to concede. 

But this is not the only reason for a grateful remembrance 
of the church to-day. There is the debt the town owes to it for 
no small share of its fair fame. Ajid this is so great as to 
merit particular mention. Concord has always stood well in 
the state. Almost always she has had something to draw the 
world's attention this way. And never has the cliurch been 
quite outside the circle of its attractions. For two hundred 
years she was their centre. 



DR. GROUTS ABDRESS. 71 

The literaiy work of the town began with its first minister. 
I have no doubt, Mr. President, you have often read, and owe 
not a few of your distinguished virtues, including your excellent 
church-going habits, to Rev. Peter Bulkeley's "Judicious and 
Savory Treatise on the Gospel Covenant;" one of the very first 
books written in America, and still a cherished treasure on the 
shelves of our Public Library. Mr. Bulkeley had also, we are 
told, "a competently Good Stroke at Latin Poetry:" and only 
the other day I fell upon two and a half octavo pages of Ya\o. 
lish verse ascribed to his [>en. 

It was thus that the literary fame of the town began. 
And nearly all of Mr. Bulkeley's successors did something to 
sustain it. You know with what envious eyes Boston looked 
upon Mr. Estabrook, thinking him "too bright a star lo be 
mufirted up in the woods amongst the Indians." You are also 
familiar with Mr. Whitefield's extravagant praise of Mr. Bliss ; 
"If I had studied my whole life-time I could not have produced 
such a sermon." The names of Rev. William Emerson, grand- 
father of the sage and the seer, and Dr. Ripley, connecting- 
links between the old times and the new, are household words. 
You know^ what they were and what they did. For two cen- 
turies the literary work of the town was nearly all done ])y its 
ministers. No doubt the same was true elsewhere. The min- 
isters were the educated men, and about the only ones, of those 
times. And the credit of their learning is due to the spirit of 
the churches, which required this of their leaders and teachers. 
Then I may be permitted to hint, and this is all I shall 
venture to do, at what the men of these last fifty years, of 
whose genius and fame we are i)roud, may have felt to be 
their indebtedness to the church. We all know through whai 
a line of noble Christian ministers the blood which fed the 
brain of Mr. Emerson had coursed. Mr. Hawthorne was cer- 
tainly not unfamiliar with the deepest thought of the church. 
And it was after his genius was well developed and properly 
shaped that Mr. Thoreau left the old First Church for that of 
the "Sunday Walkers." As for our schools, the ministers 
always had a hand in their management. And the lecturers of 
the Lyceum, we are told, addressed themselves in the early 
days to Dr. Ripley, as they have since to most of his success- 
ors. It has been said that the Transcendental uiovemeut re- 



72 CONCOBT) CELEBRATION. 

ceived one of its impulses from the high Calvinism of the 
church which went before it. So much for the fair fame of the 
town. 

If now, we may pass to the good things of the present, to 
the means of enjo3'ment and impro\ement which are to-day 
oni-s, I think we shall be able to see that for these too, the 
town owes something, more peihaps than some have considered, 
to the church. Take the material wealth which l>oth marks and 
contributes to our weal. It is a matter of just pride with us 
that, besides our cultivated fields, we have convenient houses i 
good roads, some stone bridges, with sclxiol houses and a town 
hall, and public library, and studio of ai't, and School of Phil- 
osophy, — not to claim the State Reformatory as our own. Good 
things, one and all. And it would not be just to forget, on 
this high occasion, the close link there is between these and the 
work of the church. 

The fathers, we have said, came hither with a single aim. 
And that was neither money, nor possessions of any material 
kind. It was quite other and nobler than that. Said Epicte- 
lus ; ''You will confer the greatest benefit on your community, 
not by raising the roofs, but b}' exalting the souls of your fel- 
low-citizens." The fathers came to do just that. And so, 
when they had diig a temporary shelter in the side of the hill, 
they straightway built the place for worship. Then, they 
planned for the schcol, and joined hands with others in the be- 
ginnings of a college. It was religion, manhood, intelligence, 
character, personal wordi, on which their eyes were fixed. They 
cared little for wealth ; lu.xuries they had willingly left behind. 
Hut for duty, an approving conscience, and ''the gloiious ordi- 
nance of (lod," they cared much. And of this spiiit and aim 
and life the church was the recognized centre. 

Now, given such a spirit and such i)rinciples, there could 
not fail to come succeeding generations possessed of qualities 
that should make growth and piosperity, as well as exalted 
nianli()()d sure. Lingei' at this point just a moment Ours is a 
fairly wealthy comuuniity: that is. there is not only wealth 
among us, but it is well distributed. In it all have a good 
share. How has this come to pass? Through industry, hon- 
esty, freedom from extravagance and wasteful vices, present 
self-denial, regard for the rights of one another, and interest 



DR. GROUT'S DISCOURSE. 73 

for those who are to come after us. How did the people come 
by these qualities ? They learned them largely from their re- 
ligious teachers ; in whose thought the Spelling-book went before 
mainly to prepare the way for the Bible and the Catechism; — 
to be ignorant of either of which was to be an outside barba- 
rian. Their virtues came of their religion ; a religion that had 
defects, no doubt. It was not gentle. It was not without nar- 
roAvness. It was stern, as indeed most heroic things are. But 
it had that main thing, in devotion to duty and to God, which 
is as sure to make a prosperous as it is to make a virtuous and 
powerful people. 

Is there time for another point ? For there is another, by 
no means to be overlooked on this occasion of grateful retro- 
spection. It was with great self-denial and sacrifice that all 
this church planting and building was done b}" the fathers. 
But if not to recall this would be injustice to their memories, 
still more unjust would it be to suppose that they bore their 
hardships either with complaint, or the sour and elongated faces 
some have ascribed to them. They did no such thing. On 
the other hand, we have good reason to believe that, after the 
first dark days were over, they were quite as joyous as we ; 
quite as light hearted in joke and story and laughter : possibly 
wth consciences less burdened than some of ours. 

Nor were their Sundays the gloomy days some imagine. 
They Avere serious days, no doubt, with Bible study, and sober 
kneeling about the domestic altar ; with quietness in the house» 
and stillness without. But they were not for that reason joy- 
less. It is tlie shallow brook that always babbles. 

Their church-going, moreover, was no trifling business. 
For there was a time when Lincoln and Bedford and Acton and 
Carlisle all came to the one Concord Church. Think of their 
winter toiling through unbroken snows, some afoot, some on 
sleds, some bare-back. Neither were their hardships quite over 
when safely witliin the Sanctuar}' and becomingly seated ac- 
cording to dignity or state, — the deacons close up under the 
pulpit that they might be "fed on the perpendicular droppings 
of the Word." With nothing of our modern heating appara- 
tus, on colder days the minister preached in great coat and 
mittens; 



74 CONCORD CELEBRATION. 

"While the women, maid and mother, 
Passed their stoves to one another, 
Those convenient tin arrangements 
Made to liold the slumbering coals; 
And the male sex, held from napping, 
Spent their weary time in rapping, 
Rapping their stiff boots together. 
Those were times that tried men's soles." 

And it may be doubted whether even all these would always 
have kept them from freezing, but for supplemental heat 
which came of vigorous exercise in hard wrestlings with great 
doctrines, as of fate and free-will ; and covenants of grace and 
covenants of works ; questions of religion hardly less tough 
than those philosophic categories which our friends so easily 
handle and elucidate through August heat :it our Summer 
School. 

Their's were self-denials and sacrifices of which we know 
little. And yet we have no reason to suj^pose that these heroic 
spirits ever thought themselves hardly used. Who knows that, 
were they now able to look in upon our manner of life, they 
would not still choose their own ; at least ]n'eferring their own 
robustness to languor which now reclines on velvet couches, and 
even the after thoughts of the ancient Sunday to the memorieg 
of a modern midnight masquerade. 

But I keep you from better things. We all agree, I am 
sure, that the town and church are closely related ; can never, 
in the life we live, be wholly separated. And if we now have 
to say churches, instead of church, our needs are all the better 
served for that. Our four or five, or — in what was once our 
township — our dozen or fifteen, are none too many for the good 
peo})le who are likely still to love to (!ome. Moreover, this 
multiplication of modes and creeds is only the logical out- 
come of that great principle the fathers jmt foremost ; namely, 
the right and duty of every man to read the Word and listen to 
the Spirit of God for himself, and then worship as his own 
conscience bids. It is now enough to hope, and expect that, 
as in the past and the present, we may always dwell together, 
and do our part in the world's great work, in neighborly friend- 
ship, in happy concord. 

Mr. President, it was Coleridge, I think, who said that the 



SENA TOM EVARTS SFEECB. 75 

secret of true civilization is the union of progress and perma- 
nence. In religious life and work, as in other things, Concord 
seems to have learned this lesson. May she never forget it. 

The President : — 

Speaking of the second centennial of this town, "there were giants 
on the earth in those days,'' and one of them, whose slight figure and 
bright, keen look was often seen in our streets, was pointed out to us 
boys, as having been "the little giant," of Yale college. He has 
changed but slightly witli time, for both years and honors have sat 
lightly on him; and if he has grown plethoric of positions, his annual 
visits to this scene of his youthful fame have kept him young. With 
all his honors at the bar, in the cabinet, on the forum, fi'Om his loftiest 
place, the Senator of the giant state of the Union, he brings to our 
local celebration his proud triumphs so well won with years of toil in 
every patriotic purpose. We trust that both in the senate aud here, 
he will kindly bear in mind Shakespeare's 

"O, it is excellent 

To have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous 

To use it like a giant;" 

and not caj) the quotation with anything about '"man, dres't in a lit- 
tle brief authority, playing fantastic tricks before high heaven," but 
will kindly and mercifully tell us some of the many things which 
he knows, and which we ought to be told about Concord, in sen- 
tences not too long for us to remember. 

WILLIAM MAXWELL EVARTS. 



Senator Evart's Speech. 

Mr. President, Ladies mu7 Gentleman : 

I should have felt it not only a right, but in some sense a 
duty, to attend upon this celebration, where your distinguished 
orator was to have so much of interest to me from our friend- 
ship and our kinship. But it was a great gratification to me, 
Mr. President, to receive from you an invitation, as the guest 
of the town, on account of my early associations with your peo- 
ple and my constant [tleasure in the visits that 1 once in a 
while make to them. (!oncord, to me, is more familiar in what 
makes up the delights of boyhood, than to most of you that 
have been born or that liave lived here, and 1 go furtlier back 



76 CONCORD CELEBBATIOm 

in my memory than a great part of even you mature men and 
women that 1 see about me. When boys are born in the coun- 
try and when they have ever before them the delights, the 
pleasures, the enjoyments from nature and from play, they 
become somewhat confused in their appreciation, and their 
warmth and affection, for they remember a great many labors, 
a good many gloom}'^ skies, a great many bleak storms, and 
some of the misfortunes, if not even of the calamities, of life. 
But to me, as a Boston boy, Concord was all the world in con- 
trast to the cit}-. And as I never was here except in August, 
and perhaps the twelfth day of September I thought the sun 
always shone in Concord, though I 'knew that it did not always 
on the seaboard of Boston. The place then, to me, year after 
year, before I began to share the acquaintance of distinguished 
men here and to learn wisdom which I have never forgotten — 
if I have not been able to practice it — was the delight of my 
life. And so, in the future, though I have seen pleasant lands 
abroad and at home, though I cultivate my own acres that are 
broad and, as I think, beautiful, jQi to me Concord will always 
be the picture of a boy's paradise. 

'''•Ille milii angulus terras maxime ridet.'" 

Concord was settled less than one hundred and fifty years 
after the discovery of America by Columbus. What the world 
was waiting for after that great discovery, during the first cen- 
tury and a half, nobody knew. But when Concord was settled, 
it was known that that would have been impossible if America 
had not been discovered and, Concord produced, justified Co- 
lumbus. 

An orator after dinner is awkwardly situated in Concord. 
Where he would please he fails ; for, whatever he may say that 
might seem to partake even of flattery is quietly swallowed, as 
though his hearers had often thought of it themselves. I have 
done nothing of that kind. I have simply stated the historic fact 
that America was discovered before Concord. The Indians 
were a brief and sententious people, and in a single word in 
their language you will (ind a great length, and breadth, and 
depth of meaning. Musketaquid i^s a pretty long word to begin 
with ; and I am enabled now to find in what I see before me 
a justification of my own interpretation, justified by my re- 



SfJNATOR EVAET'S SPEl^rH. 77 

searches, that Musketaquid is the Indian name for a town of 
hrave men, and fair women, and heroes and statesmen, and 
orators, and a people that never tires of talking about itself or 
hearing itself talked about for two hundred and fifty years. 
The governor — who, on several occasions in which I have had 
the pleasure of meeting him at dinner, has had the sagacity, if 
not the politeness, to leave the building whenever he knew I 
was going to rise — said some sensible things, and among others, 
that the town and the permanence of the town and persistency 
in it was really the fortune, and should be the pride and the 
power of a community like this. I had the fortune to be born 
in a neighboring town, I mean the town of Boston. These 
were two great towns, Boston and Concord. It was a long 
race. It had lasted for two hundred years and Concord was a 
little ahead. Boston saw that. If in a light breeze, Boston 
couldn't beat, what could it do when the air was full of blasts? It 
surrendered, gave up the township and tried to make a fortune in 
a different direction, as a city. I left Boston myself because it 
had not continued a town. I was determined that if I were to 
live in a city, which was a misfortune and a disaster, I would 
live in one that was big enough — New York — to make some 
compensation for it. 

My excellent friend and teacher. Judge Hoar, has Ven- 
tured upon some misgivings as to what has taken place already 
in Concord, and what might still carry it away from its 
proper moorings and swerve it from its true destiny. J see 
nothing for distrust in these facts (»r circumstances which he 
has enumerated. Mj- opinion is that every one of you men 
and women are wiser and better than the people that preceded 
you, and that those that come after you will be wiser and better 
than you. This innovation of Boston, — What is that? Con- 
cord is isolated still ; isolated by its ideas, by its genius, by 
•its virtue, by its self-esteem which we are told is at the bottom 
of all manhood, and has been especially so here for two hundred 
and fifty years. What has Concord needed of this access to 
the rest of the vvorld ? It Avas not Concord people that built 
the railroad to Boston ; it was Boston people that built the 
railroad to Concord. And so the telegraph and telephone are 
not to bring to Concord what the rest of the world is doing, 
but to carry to the rest of the world what Concord is thinking 



7S CONCORD CELEBRATION. 

of. I see no occasion for levity, Mr. President. I speak as 
near to the truth as it is possible for a new Yorker that once 
lived in or frequented Concord to do. 

Now, I have divided m}' time with my predecessors, and I 
am going to give to those wlio follow me all the time that they 
want. Mr. President, 3'ou cuntioned me, yoTi implored me, 
when you were surrendering a certain measuie of strength into 
my hands that I would not use it as a giant. That is the only 
power that I had. As for this n<^tion of yours about the possi- 
ble or the probable length of m}- sentences, this is not the first 
time I have had occasion, before an enlightened assembly, to 
meet a sneei* of that kind by saying that the only people in this 
country that were opposed to long sentences, were the criminal 
classes. 1 should have expected a suggestion of tliat kind, had 
I spoken within the ample loom of the neighboring state prison. 

Well, gentlemen and ladies, after all, there is one grand 
cardinal trait in every community, tiiat has had persistency and 
history and success. The one word that describes Concord is, 
that it was public spirited ; public spirited from the beginning, — 
public spirited whenever that great )>ower was necessaiy and 
useful. It ever gave witliout asking whether it would receive in 
return. It knew that the men and women of Concord were but 
a part of the men and women of the community, the neighbor- 
hood, the State and the Nation. And everywhere and in every 
widening sphere of its service, and its duty, public spirit was 
large enough to be diffused, and strong enough not to be 
weakened by the diffusion. There was no less in the great 
struggle that called together this great nation in armies, of 
whose members I see here, as in similar gatherings, so many 
that we honor and applaud. In that great struggle, Concord 
did not extend its patriotism, nor contribute its men or its 
treasure's for Concord — for it needed neither, — nor for Massa- 
chusetts, nor for New England, nor for wealth and prosperity 
that might have been enjoyed witli dishonor, nor for vengeance 
in the future. But, as it was the centre of energy, of benevo- 
lence when, two hundred and fifty yeais ago, it had nothing 
west of it and nothing east of it but the small towns, it was the 
same when their country bounded on the two oceans and the 
line of English power and Mexican civilization. There is the 



JUDGE BROOKS' REMARKS. 79 

history of its enterprise. There is the history that transplanted 
communities that have grown up all over this great land. The 
step that you took from Boston to go West brought you only 
to Concord. But the principle that "it is the first step that 
costs," has not ceased to be trod l>y the men of Concord and 
their wives out to the Pacific ocean. That is the boundary of 
their enterprise because it is the limit of our country. 

Now, ladies and gentlemen, scarcely anticipating the 
pleasure of joining in another celebration two hundred and fifty 
years hence I wish to leave this lesson — what has been done 
has been done as well to this time in Concord as was done at 
the beginning ; and it is a long history and a great fame and a 
great duty for the future that will secure to that future that it 
shall comport with the past. 

The President : 

Another of those members of Congress spoken of this morning 
has yet to be heard from. He has given up politics for the care of the 
helpless, widows, orphans and insolvents! and throws away on them 
his wit and talents that used to delight listening courts and legisla- 
tures. Perhaps he will recall some of his reminiscences of Concord 
courts for our benefit. There used to be good stories of them, and 
we shall be glad to hear from 

GEORGE MERRICK BROOKS. 



Judge Brooks' Remarks, 

Mr. President., Ladie.s and Gentlemen : 

Concord in the latter part of the last century and in the 
beginning of this, was a leading town in the county, on account 
of its population, its wealth and its central position, but prin- 
cipally because it was one of the shire towns of the country. 

People seem to have forgotten that fact, and I have not 
heard it alluded to by any one to-day. Formerly shire towns 
amounted to something : look at an old map of Massachusetts 
of a hundred years ago. There you will find, Boston, 8alem, 
Worcester, Springfield, Cambridge, Concord and" other towns 
designated by a large star, and they derived their importance 



no CONCORD CELEBBATTOX. 

from the fact that they were shire towns of their respective 
counties ; children were taught to give the names of shire towns 
as a part of their geographical studies. Now ask a school hoy 
what Cambridge and Lowell are noted for, he would answer* 
Cambridge for its Harvard College, Dane Law School and Mt. 
Auburn, — Lowell for its Cotton and Woolen Mills, its Carpet- 
factory and Machine shops, its telephone stock and perhaps 
Cherry Pectoral ; the fact that they were tlie shire towns of 
Middlesex county would never be thought of by them. I may be 
presuming on their ignorance but I doubt if half of the children 
know the names of the shire towns of their counties, or the 
other half know what a shire town is. Formerly shire towns 
were of great importance. My friend, the Orator of the Day, 
told us this morning about those sober, steady, God-fearing, 
church going and fighting men of former days. We have 
heard that they had few holidays! and no amusements ; but the 
old September Court in Concord was an oasis for them. We 
learn from men of the last generation, that at this term of 
Court people assembled from all parts of the county to talk 
over the aifairs of the day, to trade, swap horses and test their 
speed by racing up and down the streets ; booths were plentiful 
on the common, in front of the church and on the sides of the 
streets, where eatables and drinkables were provided for the 
hungry and thirsty, the drinkables of such a kind and charac- 
ter as would gladden the heart and make the fortune of a state 
constable of the piesent day if he had a chance to make a raid 
upon them ; in fact tiie whole week was given up to such hilar- 
ity and joviality us our ancestors were cajtable of. 

Hut to come down to the time within my own recollection, 
when the Courts were held in the old while Court House and 
still later in the present one, — true, horse racing had been 
abolished, the general air ot festivity around the town had dis- 
appeared, and then the delectable beverages that made the 
booths attractive, prohibition had banished to tlie northwest 
corner of the basement of the now solitary and deserted Mid- 
dlesex Hotel. Yet even then there was a good deal of the old 
time pomp and dignity that was a remnant of the past. Now 
you will see a justice of the Supreme Court jump off a horse 
ear, and go solitary and alone to the Court house; then when 
the bell tolled for the opening of the Court, you would see the 



JUDGE BROOKS' REMARKS. J^l 

Judge come out of the front door of the Middlesex, and the 
high sheriff with blue coat, brass buttons, buff vest, cockade 
in his hat, dress sword at his side and a long pole in his hands 
would accompany the Judge to the Court House, followed by 
the lawyers, jurymen and litigants. Then the Concord peo- 
ple had a sort of proprietary interest in the Courts, solid farm- 
ers and substantial citizens would attend the session from day 
to day not from an idle curiosit}', but to hear the able lawyers 
of the Middlesex bar measure swords in debate ; in short it was 
an old-fashioned Summer School. The Court gave a tone and 
character and was one of the institutions that gave the town 
Its importance in the count}'. 

There was another institution in Concord closely connected 
with the courts that I must call your attention to. Most of 
you (except the younger portion of m}' hearers) remember the 
old white-washed jail, with Jimmie everlastingly drumming on 
the steps, and Johnson keeping watch and ward at the gate. 
Its plan and management were such as would delight the phil- 
anthropist or prisoners' friend of the present day. The jail was 
not like those of the present da}^ where the person unjustly 
accused of a crime is confined 'in a cell seven by five to await 
his trial, and has nothing but his own reflections for company. 
The old jail had large, room}' apartments, with windows on 
two sides, a bed in each of the four corners, a table in the 
middle where the quartette could spend their time in the se- 
ductive games of Whist, Ili Lo Jack, or Old Sledge. The 
management of the jail was patriarchal and free and easy. The 
jailer (whom many of 30U know) had a good insight of human 
nature and knew whom to trust, and he allowed his prisoners 
certain privileges that would shock a prison disciplinarian of 
the ])rcsent da}-. As an instance of this, I was once retained 
to defend a man confined in this jail for some offence. I called 
to see him to make preparations for his defence, and was told 
that he had gone huckleberrying with the children. 

A story is told, for the accuracy of which I cannot vouch. 
Near the end of one of the June criminal terms the Judge 
found that there were three persons remaining to be tried, and 
requested the Sheriff to bring them in. He sent a deputy who 
soon returned with the message, that it looked like a shower 
and the jailer had them all in the meadow cocking up hay. 



fit rONCOFD CELEBEATTON. 

The Judge then turned to tlie officer and said, '*Mr. Crier, 
adjourn the court till Sam has finished his haying." 

But we did not have perfect peace iu our courts. Lowell 
had grown out of all manner of proportion, the population of 
the lower part of the county had greatly increased and they 
were constantly hectoring us to have the courts removed. True 
it was we showed to every legislature that we did more busi- 
ness than was done in the other towns, that the lawyers worked 
all day in the court-house, and spent their evenings in the old 
Middlesex preparing their cases for the next day. These ai'gu- 
ments were convincing, but at the June term 1849, a man 
indicted for some offence and out on bail, came to the illogical 
conclusion that if there was no court-house he could not be 
tried, so he touched a match and the old court-house was soon 
in ashes. 

This was considered by our opponents to be an interposi- 
tion of Providence in their favor, and they commenced an as- 
sault along the whole line. They flooded the General Court 
with petitions for the removal of the courts from Concord, and 
used all the arts kno\vn to lobbyists to ensure such removal. 
But Concord was equal to the emergency. They chose the 
honored father of the orator of the day to x-epresent them in the 
General Court, who, although advanced in years^ yet was in 
full possession of his faculties and managed the matter with 
groat ability in the House. And then that spring we had the 
three-quarter centennial of the Concord tight ; — I suppose the 
technical term would be semi-sesqui. And Mr. President, I 
may say in passing, that for its size Concord is pretty good on 
centennials. Since my boyhood (counting fractions) we had 
four centennials, and if I live as long as temperance and a good 
conscience will allow me, I expect to witness at least two more. 
We invited the legislature to this semi-sesqui, we gave them a 
good dinner, oration, poem, speeches, brass band, and all the 
accompaniments of a lirst-class celebration. They went back 
much pleased and voted to print the proceedings of the celebra- 
tion, and gave the petitioners for removing the courts leave to 
withdraw. We built the present new court-house, but in 1867 
it was thought best for us not to contest longer, and for the 
consideration of one dollar all the county property in Concord 
was turned over to the town, and good use of it was made, I 



lbttehs. S3 

have no doubt. And now ray friend, the President of the r)a_v, 
as presiding justice of the District Court, keeps the scales on 
the court house in due equipoise, the stones of the old jail 
peacefully slumber in the cellars of some of our new houses, 
and in place of the jail we have a large pile of bricks in the 
west part of the town costing over $1,000,000 — called a Re- 
formatory, containing two or three hundred reformers, without 
the privilege of going out haying or huckleberrying. 

And instead of hearing able lawyers discuss the business 
actualities of life, those who desire cool intellectual food, 
in a sweltering July day, will find a modest temple in a quiet, 
sequestered nook in the east part of the town, where they can 
hear elaborate essays upon the life, times, character, writings 
and philosophy of Plato, Kant, Fichte, Hegel and Goethe, and 
especially Goethe, and where they can listen to fine-spun meta. 
physical disquisitions upon the whichness of the why and the 
whyness of the what. 



Letters, 



The President then read the following letter: — 

Lowell, Aug. 25, 1886. 
To the Selectmen of the toicn of Co ^i cord, 3fass : 

Gentlemen, — Born in the town of Concord and living there 
seventeen years, from 1811 to 1828, and thanking Almighty 
God for long life and his great goodness to me, I wish in thi.s 
form to give unto others of my fellowmen of Concord, for their 
benefit and improvement in the future, the sum of one thous- 
and dollars ($1000), if the town of Concord will accept the 
same upon the following conditions, to wit: The mone}- to be 
put on interest for fifty years, till the third centennial year of 
the incorporation of the town of Concord, and the interest 
added to the principal, either annually or semi-annually until 
that time, when all but the original sum of one thonsatid dol- 
lars ($1000) shall be expended for the benefit and improvement 
of the town or the citizens of Concord, as the voters of the 
town may determine by a two-thirds vote of its legal voters iq 



■84 CON-CORD CELEBRATIOn. 

town meeting assembled, and if they should not be able to 
command a two-thirds vote upon the manner of disposing of 
the same when it becomes due, it may be brought forward 
and acted upon at future town meetings until disposed of b}' a 
two-thirds vote of the legal voters of the town. The original 
one thousand dollars ($1000) shall again be put at interest as 
before described, and at the end of every fifty years thereafter 
all but the original principal shall be disposed of in the same 
manner as before mentioned. 

Respectfully 3'ours, 

IIap<50od WniGHT. 

N. B. I should like to have it called "The Hapgood 
Wright Semi-Centenuial Fund." 

The President. 

As you are tired of hearing my strained voice, with your permis- 
sion my sou, Mr. Prescott Keyes will read the letters received in reply 
to invitations from guests we hoped to have with us to-day. .Mr. 
Winthrop modestly refrains from mentioning an eloquent s])eecli he 
made here fifty years ago, and he is the only speaker of that occasion 
now living. How much a speech from him to-day would have added 
to the interest of this celebration as connecting it so closely with the 
Bi-Ceutennial. His health does not permit him to be present, and 
we have alas, only his letter. 

Mr. Prescott Keyes then read the following letters ad- 
dressed to the Committee on invitations ; — 

Brookltne, Mass., 21 August, 1885. 
Gentlemen: I am honored by your communication of the 
1st instant, inviting me to attend the celebration of the two 
hundredth and fiftieth anniversai-y of the incorporation of Con- 
. cord, as a guest of the town, on the twelfth of September next. 
It would afford me peculiar pleasure to be with 30U on that 
occasion. It was mj' good fortune to be one of the invited 
guests on the two hundredth anniversary celebration on the 
twell'th of September, 1835. I was then one of the rejnescnta- 
tives of Boston in the legislature of Massachusetts, but I came 
to Concord as an aid-de-camp of Lieutenant Governor Arm- 
btj-oug, who had become the acting governor of the State by the 



election of Governor Davis to the senate of the United States. 
It was a most agreeable and notable occasion, and one which 1 
recall at the end of fifty years, and as, perhaps, the only sur- 
vivor of the guests of that celebration with no little interest. 

The admirable oration, by one who afterwards obtained 
such a signal celebrity as the late lamented Ralph Waldo P^mer- 
son, would alone have made the occasion memorable to every 
one who was present. The prayer of the aged and venerated 
Dr. Ezra Ripley — whose liospitality I had enjoyed at his own 
home some years before, in company with my endeared class- 
mate and chum, Charles Chauncy Emerson — was not less im- 
pressive. 

I would gladly renew my association with the scenes and 
memories of that day, but I am constrained to resist the temp- 
tation, and I must reluctantly decline 3'our invitation. 

Concord has a world wide fame. Her earliest annals 
abound in charming incidents, of at least one of which, in 1038, 
my own ancestor was a prominent figure. Her maturer history 
includes, with that of Lexington, the first blood of the Revolu- 
tion. Her later years have been illustrated by the Roman in- 
tegrity of Samuel Hoar and the eminent abilities and services 
of his sons, as well as by the brilliant genius of Hawthorne and 
Emerson. 

No town in our Commonwealth, or on our whole continent, 
has stronger claims to a distinguished and grateful remomV)rance. 

Believe me, gentlemen, with sincere thanks for your invita- 
tion and best wishes for the occasion. 

Respectfully and truly your obedient servant, 

Robert C. "WiNxnnor. 

PLY^iouTn, Aug. 4, 1885. 
Gentlemen: I have received with pleasure 3-01'r cordial 
invitation to attend, as a guest of the town, the two hundred and 
fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of Concord on the 
twelfth of September. I have delayed my reply in tlie hope 
that I might find it possible to bo in Concord that day, and it 
is with the greatest regret that I come to the decision that my 
duties will compel me to remain here at the time of the festival. 
J need not trouble you with the particulars, but I wish to assure 



S6. COKCORD CSLICB RATION. 

yon that nothing but imperative reasons would make me forego 
the pleasure of attending the anniversary or the honor of being 
one of its public guests. I have always prided myself on the 
privilege of being a native of Concord, and cling tenaciously to 
everything tiiat gives me a new hold upon m}' birthright. I 
am, therefore, very grateful to you for doing me the honor of 
including me among tlie sons of Concord on this oci-asion, and 
much disappointed that I cannot V)e your guest. 
I remain gentlemen, most truly yours, 

William W. Goodwin. 

Newpout, R. I.. Sept. 8, 1885. 
3fij Dear Emerson : I could not receive a more tempting 
invitation than you gave me 'in your letter that reached me 
yesterday. You move every fibre of my heart by touching on 
the display of the grandest and most effective creative power 
of public spirit liy rural patriots in private life, and on the 
dearest affections of personal friendship. I longed so much to 
comply with your invitation that it has taken a few hours re- 
flection to make ine feel that I cannot avail myself of it. 

I shall within a few days finish the first quaiti'r of my fifth 
score of years, and, in the uncertainty of m}' ability to bear the 
fatigue, feel unwilling to give you the trouble of taking cai'e of 
me. 

But though I cannot come to you on Saturday, pray assure 
yourself that I am, and ever shall be, 

Your faithful friend, 

Gko. Bancrofx. 

Halifax, N. S., Sept, 5 1885. 
My Dear Mr. Walcott: 

Much to mj' regret, I find that I cannot reach home in time 
to attend the Concord Celebration on the 12th inst. I have had 
it it in mind ever since you gave me the kiad invitation ; and I 
feel sorely disappointi'd over the fact. I have been away now 
three weeks, and I hope before my return to visit Cape Breton 
and Prince lidward Island, which will take another fortnight. 
This precludes the possibility of my keeping the engagement 



DR. EMERSON'S REMARKS. ^ 

from which I had anticipated a great deal of pleasure. I feel a 
deep interest in old Middlesex, and in Concord which stands for 
so much in its histor}'^ — to si}' nothing of its wider influence 
throughout the state and nation — and I deeply regret my in- 
ability to be present on this interesting occasion. 

Yours very truly, 

Samuel A. Green. 

The following telegram from Governor Long president of 
.the Hingham celebration was read : 

Hingham congratulates Concoi'd on the celebration of their oom- 
raon birthday. Hope you will have a good time, sister. 

This reply was sent by telegraph. 

The low hills to the seashore send greetings and congratulations. 
Concord replies to her twin. Many happy returns. 

The President. 

In June 1834, a private school was opened in this town by Wil- 
liam Whitiug who died whUe Member of Congress from Boston. Tliera 
were twenty two scholars in the school. Fifty years afterwards, sixteen 
of those twenty -two were living, and ten of them present at a wedding 
in Concord in June 1884. That school attended in a body the Bi- 
centennial of the Town in 1835, and listened to the orator of 
that day. Whether their continuance in Concord and tlieir longevity 
was owing to the inspiration of that occasion, or the doctors of the 
town, may be questioned. The son of that orator, and himself a 
doctor will gratify us by speaking of his predecessors and of the 
name he bears. 

EDWAKD WALDO EMERSON* 



Dr. Emerson's Remarks. 

Mr. President: 

Perhaps the perennial vigor of those who were the young 
people here fifty years ago, which you Sir, for our good fortune, 
happily demonstrate, was due to the fact that Concord's old 
fashioned doctors seldom prescribed a change of air. 

At your bidding, ISir, i have lor the moment put off the 



SS CONCORD CELEBRATION. 

uniform of a very independent company, which parades with 
two old bi'ass guns, — you set me the example years ago — guns 
which we hope are not thorns in the side of our honored guests 
the Commander-in-Chief and Adjutant-General, — and come 
here to answer for the old Doctors of Concord. Having m3-self 
half turned my back on the healing ai-t, I wish to show that 
these doctors set in this respect a most pernicious example. 

The first, Dr. Philip Read, dabbled in free-thought, criti- 
cized the preaching of the ancestors of our Chaplain, for which 
Concord madi> it desirable for him to change his residence. 

But what followed? Dr. James Minott did not stick to his 
pills and lierli-diinks, yet escaped the fate of his forerunner. 
This gentleman was as versatile a genius as Anonyniuus in a 
book of extracts. Here is his epitaph! 

Here is interred the remains of James Minott Esq., a. m. an 
Excelling Grammarian enriched with the Gift of Prayer and 
Preaching, a Commanding Offlcer, a Physician of Great Value, 
a Great Lover of Peace, as well as of Justice, and which was 
his Greatest Glory, a (lent'mn of distinguished Virtue and 
GooJness Happy in a Virtuous Posterity and living Religiously 
died comfortably, Sept 20, 1725. Act. 83. 

Could man do more ? Was not this the high-water mark 
of our race? 

In the very next generation the physician is styled Major 
Jonathan Prcscott, vying in accomplishments with his prede- 
cessor. 

His son Dr. John, a good ph^^sician, presently appears a 
commander of an expedition against Cuba, then as a diplomatic 
agent for the Colonies in Loudon where he died. 

A generation passes, and then we find Dr. Samuel Prescott 
riding home from courting Miss MuUiken of Lexington at the 
strange hour of one in the morning on the lOth of April, join- 
ing Paul Revere on the road and by his good horsemanship 
escaping over a wall when Revere was taken, and bringing the 
stirring news to Concord ; but we hear no more of him as a 
practitioner. 

Time fails me to tell of John Cunnning, Harvard graduate, 
Indian fighter, Indian captive, then Lieutenant Colonel in ser.- 
vice against them, wide-riding country doctor. Royal Justice of 
the Peace, Patriot, member of the committees of Coirespon- 



DR. EMERSOJ^'S REMARKS. 89 

dence and Safety, then sitting in the Provincial Congress and 
County Courts, and last benefactor to the town and to nis 
Alma Mater : of the varying but hard fortuiies of Dr. Ezekiel 
Brown : of Abiel Heywood, practicing medicine for years ; then 
Town Clerk, Chief Selectman and Assessor tor 30 years, latterly 
abandoning at once celibacy and small clothes, and taking office 
of high trust in the State : of Edward Jarvis, general practitioner 
and specialist, writer on genealogy, liistory and statistics, and 
loyal benefactor of this town! 

But in late years the town was blessed with doctors who 
did not scorn to abide in their toilsome calling, and died in har- 
ness faithful and brave, loved and honored like him whose ven- 
rable face we all remember. 

From the honored names of the healers of this town, in the 
days that are gone by, thus lightly touched on, but whom we 
all revere, I turn to answer, as you have bid me. Sir, for my 
name and race, thankful that the double tie which binds it to 
the Past of this town gives me the right. 

He who fifty years ago spoke near where t(^-day you have 
listened to a representative of an honorable family always near 
to him loved Concord. The room where he wrote we call his 
study, but his study was the pine wood or the oak-girt ledge of 
rock looking on blue Walden and bluer river, beautiful to hira 
in even the harshest aspect and full of voices as the sacred 
groves of the East. 

Not less the aspects of the men and women of the village. 
He watched the farmer pass his window and remembered him. 
as one who faced the Primal Forces and wielded them to raise 
his corn. 

He sat in the Town-Meeting, speaking seldom, hearing 
every word, and came home praising the sense and courage 
shown, secure that in the end, after this rough sifting, the 
brave counsel would prevail. 

I bring to his townspeople to-day this woid whicli 1 only 
yesterday found in his note book. " 'How do the wise differ 
from the unwise,' was the question put to Bias. He replied 
In a good hope.' It is the true heroism and the true wisdom, 
'Hope.'" That shall be his word for the next century. This 
other note I found, written just after a stormy scene which hap- 
pened in these streets just before the war. 



90 rONrOTiD CELEBRATION. 

"Somebody said in my hearina: lately that a house in Con- 
cord was worth half as iiiuch again as a house in any other 
town since the people had shown a good will to defend each 
other." 

The President: 

It was the irony of fate that in Concord should begin the Revolu- 
tion. Concord Fight is a. contradiction in terms; and it is perhaps 
the irony of history that (Concord should furnish the ground where 
Acton men fought the l)attle of Lexington. 

[s there not some of tlie irony of hoth fate aud history that the 
modest, transcendental youth, who came here from Brook Farm, '"to 
till these lonely fields" should in tiiese days have the largest audience 
as Orator and Editor in this liroad land"? That he 

"By woudrous tongue and guided i)en 
Brings tlie flown miises liack to men." 

Will he kindly speak on this occasion to this vimU gathering of 
his former townsmen 

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 



Mr. Curtis' Speech, 

Mr. President: 

That I once lived in Concord, is among my happiest re- 
collections, and that I should be asked to come back again to- 
day is one of the most gratifying of honors. Life gives us few 
purer pleasures than lo know tliat we are kindly remembered 
where we remember kindly, and u]»on returning to the familiar 
places to fmd the old friendships and old feelings as unchanged 
as ttie hills and streams. In tlie lenderest of his poems, Byron 
recalling the best liours ot" his life, describes the scene that he 
remembers as a ''most living landscape." But the life of a 
landscape is not in its verdure and form, in its Avaving woods 
and flowing waters. The landscape lives in its human associa- 
tions, in its historic traditions. Its deepest charm is felt when 
we can say with Wordsworth : "Here in old time the liand of 
man hath been," — the hand of genius, the hand of heroism, of 
art, of lettei's,of science ; so that tlie the dead, whose works do 
follow them, may, after all, make the most living landscape. 



MR. CURTIS' SPEECH. 91 

I suppose that there is no son, native or adopted, of Con- 
cord who does not clierish for tlie ancient town that peculiar, 
personal feeling of reverence of which our orator spoke this 
morning. There is no town winch has a story more worth telling, 
and that story was never more completely, more adecjuately or 
more no))ly told than you have heard it to-day. Now mindful 
of the hour, and of the tried patience of my hearers, I can- 
not but recall the story of the old clergyman (and this story, I 
think, is not told of a Concord clergyman, as most good stories 
are), who paused, after preaching a couple of hours, in the 
middle of his sermon, and said : "Ah brethren, saving souls 
is such delightful work that I could go on preaching all 
night, but I must consider the infirmity of human nature, I 
must forbeai-, I will restrain myself and preach only four houi-s 
longer." As every one of the distinguished gentlemen who 
have preceded me has taken his seat, I have wislicd that ho 
would forbear and restrain himself to preach only four hours 
longer. That forbearance my friends, would have had for you 
this advantage, — that you would have been spared listening to 
another speech ; while it would have enabled me to permit ex- 
pressive silence to muse the praise of Concoi'd. 

"Here is old Concord, 

Now let expressive silence rause her praise." 

I came to Concord with my brother, from Brook Farm. 
I am not quite sure whether we belonged to that "Menagerie" 
of Mr. Emerson, of which wo liave heard or whether we were 
not a pair of those "visionary youths" whom Mr. Hawthorne 
said overran this village about forty years ago. Yet lie was 
one of us. He preceded us from l>rook Farm : and Concord, 
surely, was not the only wondei-land to which he introduced 
the young visionaries of his time. There was as my older 
friends may remember, some kind of dissociation in the popular 
mind, between Concord and Brook Fnrin. It was very natural 
that it should be so. Mr. Emerson lived in Concord and Brook 
Farm was supposed, in some indescril)al>le way, to have sprung 
from his teachings. To go from Concord to Brook Farm, 
therefore was merely to pass from theory to practice. To come 
from Brook Farm to Concord was to rise from plain living to 
high tliiuking. Indeed the lines of a young man eonld not 



•''^ CONCORD CELEBRATTON. 

have fjiUen in a pleasanter place nor in one more likely to vSti" 
mulate his oood impul.ses if he had any, and to repress those 
that were not so ;j,ood, than a vdlaji:e at one end of which lived 
Emerson and at the other end Hawthorne, while conveniently 
bnt charactei-istically \\\ a different direction from either lived 
Henry Taore m. If to this you add the immortal revolutionar}'' 
tradition that made t!ie long, winding road under the brow of 
the hill from Emerson's lionse on one end to Hawthorne's at 
the other, a via sacra, and ihen fill the village with that popu- 
lation which seemed to have sprung from Cromwell's Ironsides 
themselves, if you plant it all in that tran<j[uil, gentle, pastoral 
landscape, so familiar to you, and which the best genius of 
America has made familiar to all the world, if you do this, you 
have tlie Concord that T knew, the Concord of forty years ago, 
the Concord that was then and still is the friend and ally of 
every good cause involving the rights of man or the rights of 
woman, that Concord which then was and now is the fullest 
and faii-est representative of the old New England which 
marched from beyond the Merrimac to beyond the Mississipi, 
planting New England men and New England principles 
wherever its foot fell. 

There is no American town to which Dr. Johnson's famous 
remark al)ont two widely severed places is more applicable than 
to Concord. "That man," he says, "is little to be envied whose 
patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or 
whose piety would not grow warmer among tlie ruins of lona." 
Patriotism .and piety, — these make tlie legend, these tell the 
story of this town. Marathon and lona blend in this town- 
No Greek hero, not Leonidas, not JVliltiades, was of purer 
heroic mould than Isaac Davis, and John Buttrick, and James 
Barrett, and their comrades, — the heroes who have made these 
meadows ground as dear and sacred to the liberty hjving heart 
of mankind as the plain of Marathon or the pass of Thermo- 
pylae. 

These were the heroes of the field. But in that tran(|uil 
sphere of thought which moves the world, the serene wisdom 
of the scliolar at the other end of the village, fired the shot 
heai'd round the moral world of his generation, and makes the 
plain village as precious a bourne of pilgrimage as the fane of 
lona. I cannot allow myself to give \v ay to the feelings and 



MR. CtrMTiS' SPEECH. .9,* 

consefjuently to the words which are in my henrt and which are 
trembling upon mv tongue. This only let me say — that it 
seems to me that we are to remember that the men who stood 
at the Bridge and who forced British anthority to begin its 
retreat from the western continent, were the armed pioneers of 
American political independence. The scholar at the other 
end of the town boldly challenged the most venerable ecclesi- 
astical traditions and in his day declared for us all that inde- 
pendence that soul-liberty, upon which Roger Williams planted 
Rhode Island, — these were the men who have bound the spir- 
itual and political lesson of Concord close together in independ- 
ence. If there is any one principle which, in every political 
and every religious emergency, is the sure stay of every Amei'i- 
can citizen, uiidonbtedly you will agree with me that it is what, 
in the old colonial phrase, was called "independency;" and if 
there be one fraternity which in this country should never be 
permitted to die out, it is that surely of the sons of liberty. 

Mo tiner word was spoken to us this morning by our orator 
than this,— that tlie great events which culminated at the 
Bridge showed the constancy of onr fathers in their patriotism. 
Constant were they above all. Faithful were they to the last. 
And when he truly said, in that phrase which will become me- 
morable, that Major Buttrick gave the order to subjects of 
King George and that the men who tired were citizens of 
Ameiica, I felt at once how striking an illustration it was of 
their constancy to principle, and their independence of names 
and traditions, — that almost, as it seemed, in a single moment, 
they passed from being subjects of a king into the fulness of a 
prospective republic. 

There is one story which I am very sure, though it be of a 
clergyman, is a story of Concord. And I do not know why all 
of the good stories are fathered upon the clergy if it be not 
that, as the devil is said to have all the good tunes, it be only 
fair that the clergy should have all the good stories; and this 
particular story is that of a clei'gyman who went into the pulpit, 
taking up the hymn book and found that the leaves were torn 
out. so that the book was very thoroughly dilapidated. He 
said ''Brethren, let us begin these exercises by singing to the 
praise and glory of God the 412th hymn." He proceeded a 
few stanzas. "No, no, — let us sing to the praise and glory of 



94 CONCORD CELEBRATION, 

God the 212th hymn." He proceeded a little further, but the 
consuming tooth of time had been V)et"ore hira. He stopped 
again. "Brethren," — he tried it once more, but the result was 
the same. He closed tlie book' in a kind of despair. "The 
congregation will sing to the same praise and glory any hymn 
that is not torn out of the book." 

So, T am about to leave this congregation to sing the 
praise and glory of Concord in any conceivable form of words 
that has not already been exhausted. As for myself, as I re- 
call Annursnack, and Lee's Hill, and the Cliffs and Ponkaw- 
tasset, Walden and Fairhaven, and the North Bridge, as I fill 
these familiar streets and fields with that troop of the; shining 
ones, men and women whom I remember. 

"I feel tlie gales tliat from ye blow 
A momentary bliss bestow." 

And I say, in the words most familiar, I am sure, to the parish 
of old Peter Bulkeley and of Dr. Ripley, so long the pastor, 
blending verses in which the sentiment so naturally blends, 
"If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost 
parts of the sea, if 1 forget thee O Jerusalem, let my right 
hand forget her cunning." 

At the end of Mr. Curtis' speech the sunset had come and 
the audience rose to depart : 

The President said. 

The audience ai-e requested to join in a slight ceremony in the 
conclusion of this celebration. 

In 1792, seventeen years after the Fight, the old Xorth Bridge 
was moved down the river a hundred rods. One bent of that bridge 
was used for the timber foundation of the abutment at the new spot. 
A stepping-stone on tlie old causeway, over wliicli Captain Isaac 
Davis fell when lie "was pierced by a British nutsket ball," was used 
in building the new abutment. Seven years ago, in rebuilding this 
abutment, that stoi.o w;is found witli the stains upon it, that 
tradition says were Captain Davis's blood. It Avas carefully saved, 
and will at some suitable opportunity, be presented to the town of 
Acton, to be placed beside their monument to the hero of that fight. 
From the oak post of the old North bridge, thus preserved for a cen- 
tury under water, several canes have been made, which I desire now, 
in behalf of this town,ito place 'where they will do the most good,' in 
the keeping of those of our guests to-day who have in prose and soujj, 



PRESENTATIONS. 96 

made that bridge ever memorable. If they serve as staffs to their de- 
clining years, of which we trust that our guests will enjoy many, 
may they also remind them of the events that this oak witnessed, 
ctnd of this town and celebration. 



Judge Keyes then presented :i cane to Senator Hoar to 
Senator Evarts, to Mr. Curtis, to Mr. Lowell, to Mr, Hapgood 
Wright and to Judge Hoar. The canes are gold mounted 
and are inscribed "Old North Bridge Oak, Concord, Mass., 
September 12 '85." 

Thi^ closed the exercises, and a national salute after sunset 
ended the celebration. 

Had not the lateness of the hour prevented, the Rev. 
George Herbert Hosuier and Samuel Hoar Esq. would have 
responded, the first fur the family of his name so long and so 
well known in the town, the last for the town itself of which 
he is the chief municipal officer and for the soldiers of the union 
army of whom he was one. 



THE END. 



Appendix. 



Tt is interesting to record that one Indian girl of pure blood was 
present at the Celebration, the only representative of her fast vanishing 
race. Her name, Wazivpaitewin means (Tood pine tree, and her 
adopted name is Annie C. Lyman. She is a Sioux of the Dakota tribe 
and a-student at the Institute at Hampton Virginia. 



Concord by vote at the November meeting accepted the "Hapgood 
WRTfJiiT Semi-Centennial Fund" and the amount given, one thousand 
dollars, (ftlOOO) has been deposited with the Massachusetts Hospital 
Life Insurance Company, to accumulate for the next fifty years. The 
giver of the fund is a descendant of the seventh generation, from the 
first of the name, Edwakd VVkiuht, who settled in Concord, about 
16.50. Petek, a son of Edward, left by his will a fund of one hundred 
pounds for the benefit of the poor of the Town, the first of the long 
list of Town Donations still held by Trustees for the purposes for 
which they were given. Hapgood Wright, the son of Nathan Mer- 
riam Wright, was born in Concord March 28, 1811. He settled in 
Lowell and has been a successful merchant there, occiiiiying the same 
store for fifty years. He has filled many positions of municipal trust 
and honor with great acceptance, and gave to Lowell on its fiftieth 
anniversary, a similar donation to tliis to Concord on its two hun- 
dredth and fiftieth. In thus ending, as his ancestor began, the pres- 
ent list of donors to Concord's Funds for useful purposes, it is but a 
slight tribute to his and his ancestors worth to record here this brief 
notice. 



It was found at the final meeting of the (Committee of Arrange- 
ments, that the Celel)ration had been successfully carried out at an 
expense including the cost of the historic tablets, within the appropri- 
ation. A small balance was left, and used to defray in part, the cost of 
printing this report, published in accordance with a vote of the Town 
passed at the November meeting, and prepared and edited by 

J. S. KEYES, ) 

GEO. M. BROOKS, > Committee. 

SAMUEL HOAR, ) 



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